BBC # 51, The Secret Garden

I've read this book at least 3 times so it won't surprise you that I highly recommend it to anyone!! Especially girls. For some reason girls seem to like it more--Probably because the main character is a girl.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a classic that I plan on reading to my children. The main character is Mary, a sour, spoiled little girl who cannot understand when everything doesn't go her way. After her parents deaths in India, she is sent to live with her uncle in England. England is nothing like India and she has to adjust to a different culture and climate as well as learning the world is larger than herself.

Mary becomes friends with sour old gardener Ben Weatherstaff, the robin redbreast, Dickon--the boy who can talk to animals, and eventually even with a child more spoiled and sour than even she was.

The book is one of wonder, of mystery, of taking life as it is and making it better. I loved it even more this read through than I did as a little girl.

This book belongs on every little girl's bookshelf (and pretty much everyone else's too!)

BBC # 16, The Wind in the Willows

I'm really not sure how I feel about The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Honestly, I'm torn.

I couldn't focus on it. I would read maybe a chapter and be done. It took me 2 months to read. I've finished books I've hated faster. I didn't hate the book. Maybe that's why it was so hard for me to read.

It evoked no strong emotions in me.

Being a children's book, I expected an easy read. It was easy enough I guess. I read half of the book today. I had to force myself to read it that long, but it wasn't because it was hard. Just because I wasn't interested.

I kind of feel like Grahame took weighty ideas, tried to simplify them for children, and made them less deep and interesting. Maybe if I was still a kid it would be deep enough for me. But I'm not.

The only character I really cared about was Mole. I had minor interest in Ratty's well being. Toad just irritated me. The rest of the characters I was apathetic about. If the book had been about Mole, I think I could have read more of it faster. Instead it talked about all the animals and especially towards the end, it focused a lot on Toad. It also bugged me that Toad got away with so much--though the ending kind of made up for that.

I vaguely remember reading the book as a kid and I vaguely remember liking it, so take my review with a grain of salt. I don't think the book is bad. It just didn't hold my interest.

So, my final opinion on the book is: Good for kids, not good for me.