This is an absolutely wonderful book. It is so beautiful and we cannot recommend it enough. If I am being honest, I have not had the pleasure to read the original secret garden and in the blurb, it said this is a retelling and this has encouraged me to go and venture into the classic!

I highly recommend this!

A beautifully designed book brings the magic and depth of The Secret Garden to a new generation. Rated 4 1/2 stars.

The Secret Garden was a childhood favourite of mine, so with great joy and delight, it is all ready again for a new generation of readers. What I really wanted to know, was how well this re-telling would be and if all the important parts would be ther
e or not. I needn't have been concerned. It is actually pretty faithful to editions before-hand, as far as I remember it, without digging my older copy out.

The story starts in India with Mary Lennox becoming an orphan and being sent to England, where she would be brought up in Misslthewaite Manor, quite a foreboding building, where she meets Mrs Medlock and the kindly servant, Martha. There is quite a culture shock for Mary as she was used to being pampered in India and she's a pretty angry young girl.

When she does enter the garden, she meets Ben Weatherstaff, the elderly gardener, whose friend is Mr Robin. She later finds a key and is on a mission to find The Secret Garden. She also, however has to contend with Mr Craven back at the creeking, draughty old manor. During her time, she also meets Dickon and then Colin, the polar opposites to each other in manner.

Children can be easily transported into The Secret Garden, with its pacy story of light and dark as people's lives change. The illustrations and descriptions are both rich and tell the story well. It is a lovely book and one that really does stand the test of time really rather well. The main elements of the story are still there, as you would expect and there's certainly enough from the magic of the garden, the spookiness of the the manor, the emotion of upheaval and more... and getting to know the character's pasts, presents and see a glimpse into their futures, there is plenty to engross children today.

A wonderful variant on the original Secret Garden, abridged and smoothed out for young readers by an expert at knowing what young readers should be consuming. I won't go into the whole redemptive powers of the garden and how it brings light into the life of a whole disparate family of people on the Yorkshire Moors, but I will say this was a very good way of presenting it all. The artwork is wonderful – OK, it showed none of the change in the heroine the text mentions as she switches from a stick-thin bit of anger to a "wick" young woman over the course of the seasons the story plays out in, but it really was lovely to see.

One thing to point out as regards the text was how stupid my prior retelling of this had been to dump the whole India-set start (full review at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3911385678), for that is certainly needed. That version seemed to nail more of the complexity of the characters, for here there was not quite the room to debate whether what made them dislikeable was acceptable before showing their arc to happiness. So again, some purists may dislike how a little of the light and shade has been removed from their beloved original. But without expert knowledge of that, I still feel happy to state this is a welcome
edition, and I really liked it. Four and a half stars.