Tag Archives: Francis Hodgson Burnett

The Green Power of Imagining

In “Secret Garden,” healing begins with imagining a hopeful future. It’s a lesson for dealing with our environmental challenges.

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Secret Garden, Hidden Soul

The secret garden in Burnett’s novel works as a metaphor for the soul.

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Secret Garden, Perfect Pandemic Reading

A “Paris Review” writer makes a great case that we should reread “Secret Garden” during the pandemic.

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Illness in 19th Century Lit

19th century literature is filled with images of illness. Reading it should make us grateful to the advances in medical science.

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Children Leading the Way on Gun Control

The young people helping America rediscover decency concerning guns resemble Mary and Colin in “The Secret Garden.”

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Top 10 Parent-Child Classics (Positive)

A top ten list of classics with positive depictions of parent-child relationships.

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Michael Jackson and Peter Pan

  “I am Peter Pan,” Michael Jackson reportedly once said, and of course he chose to name his ranch Neverland. In this second of my two posts marking Jackson’s death, I thought I would reflect upon why J. M. Barrie’s fictional creation meant so much to him. Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up […]

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The Magic World of Children’s Lit

William Kristof, the much traveled Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the disturbing way that children’s IQ scores often drop over summer vacation. The cause is lack of intellectual stimulation. The problem is more severe with poor than it is with middle class kids. As an antidote, Kristof offered […]

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Striving to Emulate Little Lord Fauntleroy

Children, when they start developing a sense of self, discover that there is a preset gender program they are expected to conform to. For some this is not a problem, but others feel constrained by their assigned designation. It’s not always that girls want to be boys and boys girls. Sometimes they just want to […]

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