Rainbow Garden by Patricia M. St. John (1960)
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)
"It all began one cold January night, when I was kneeling in front of my mother's electric fire, drying my hair. Outside, the snow was falling over London, and the footsteps and the noise of the traffic were muffled, but inside my mother's pink bedroom, with the velvet curtains drawn close and the the shaded lamps casting down rosy light, we were very warm and snug." (Rainbow Garden, page 9)
"When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and her little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression." (The Secret Garden, page 1)
Elaine and Mary are two very similar little girls. They both get abandoned by their parents and sent to live at a distance from their home with strangers. They are both quite spoiled and used to having everything done for them. But in their new surroundings they both blossom under the influence of nature and an active outdoor life.
In Elaine's case, her widowed mother gets a secretarial job in France and sends her daughter to live in the countryside with the family of a woman she went to school with. The Owen's and their six children live in a Vicarage in a small village in North Wales. There's the usual 'spoiled girl struggles to live in a family of boisterous kids' storyline. Additionally, this is the kind of book that was written to fill up Sunday School libraries. There are deep Christian overtones, but mostly of the golden rule variety.
Mary Lennox is, of course, a much better known heroine, who ends up in Yorkshire after the death of her parents in India. Her new playmates aren't so rambunctious, but there is better landscaping!
I linked these two in the same entry because I would not have discovered one without the other. The Secret Garden was supposed to be my birthday present in 1979. My Dad was dispatched to the bookstore near where he worked to purchase it. But, he bought the wrong book. And despite the 'Jesus saves' overtones in Rainbow Garden, I've always really liked it. There's a mystery element woven into it, and a family camping trip to Mount Snowdon that goes disastrously wrong. And while I rather grew out of the religion thing, there's nothing wrong with a little encouragement to be kind to yourself and others. Plus, there's an English sheepdog named Cadwaller.
The Secret Garden of course always delights with its hidden treasures... and the fact that there is a black and white movie version with Dean Stockwell as Colin which predates The Wizard of Oz, but uses the same fade to color technique when Mary finds the garden. Actually, I can think of at least three film interpretations of the book, and none of them completely butcher the story. They might get a little overly creative about the dead wife's backstory... but for the most part, they work for me.
It was a very spring like day here in Central Pennsylvania, and thoughts turned to these two books. Anyone want to join me in the garden?
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