After her parents die of cholera in India, Mary Lennox is sent to live
with her uncle in his gloomy house in Yorkshire, where she leads a
lonely and neglected life, with nothing to do apart from exploring her
surroundings. One day she discovers a walled garden which has been
locked up, and becomes determined to enter it and find out its secret
and the source of the mysterious crying sound that can be heard nearby.
A powerful tale of regeneration and personal transformation, The Secret
Garden has become one of the most popular children's classics, and has
continued to delight generations of young readers.
Growing up in a poor New York neighbourhood, Cedric Errol appears to be
a normal American boy. However, as he discovers when he meets his
grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, he is actually Lord Fauntleroy, and
is expected to become an English gentleman. Whisked away from his mother
and his friends, Cedric must find a way to convince his grandfather to
send him home and show him that there is more to nobility than titles
and wealth. First published in 1886, Little Lord Fauntleroy was Frances
Hodgson Burnett's first children's novel, and was hugely popular in its
day. It contains many of the themes that would recur in her masterpiece
The Secret Garden, and remains a witty and charming tale of a
transatlantic clash of cultures.
When Sara Crewe is brought from India to attend Miss Minchin's boarding
school for girls in London, she arrives looking rather like a princess,
with trunks full of the finest clothes. Yet, despite having her own pony
and carriage, private room and personal maid, Sara is never a snob to
her fellow pupils. Instead, she is kind, thoughtful and generous, and
soon she is friends with all the girls there. But when the terrible news
of her father's death and failed financial investments arrives, Sara is
suddenly left a penniless orphan. She is allowed to stay at the school,
but as a servant, and the cruel Miss Minchin starves and ill-treats her.
Faced with day after day of endless, exhausting work, Sara relies on her
friendships and her imagination to get her through the misery of her
circumstances. However, when Mr Carrisford and his assistant Ram Dass
arrive from India and move in next door to the school, and warm blankets
and delicious food mysteriously begin to appear in Sara's little room in
the attic, it looks like her life is about to change for ever...
