Mistress Mary Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

Have you ever experienced a moment were you ask somebody what something is, and they are so completely and utterly shocked that you don't already know what it is? This seems to happen to me all the time. Then once I finally know all the details about this new, how should I say it? thing. I see it everywhere! One time my friend Sabrina mentioned the Kardashians, and my response was of course, "Who are the Kardashians?". Sabrina was immediately surprised and explained to me everything about the Kardashians. Now, I see the name Kardashian everywhere, and oh boy to I mean everywhere. The whole not knowing what something is then suddenly seeing is everywhere system, was how I found out about The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Ms. Robbins, my English Language Arts teacher, was showing us an example of an Appreciation (to later write an Appreciation our selves) and, this Appreciation was about the the book The Secret Garden. Naturally, I had never heard of such a book. Still, after reading the Appreciation of the book, I was not yet convinced, or even interested in Frances Hodgson Burnett's fiction. I had forgotten about the book until recently, when I saw the familiar title on Netflix Watch Instantly. I was intrigued by the cover, and thought it would be an interesting experiment to see the film. To my surprise, I loved the film The Secret Garden so much. It was full of beauty and brought up so many emotions in me. I immediately went to download the book on my iPad because I was way to much of a hurry to begin reading the book, instead of going out to buy it.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a fiction book about a sour, bratty girl named Mary Lennox. Mary Lennox was an unwanted child born in India, whose parents hid her away with her Ayah and got mostly always got what she wanted. People in her surroundings detested Mary and her behavior.  Mary mostly kept to herself because she had no one to play with and never showed any emotion, even after her parents died in a cholera, which was a disease, outbreak. With no one to take care of Mary in India, she was shipped off to live in Yorkshire with her Uncle Archibald Craven. Mary feels unloved and alone in her uncle's humongous house and she is forbidden in almost every room in the mansion. You know how kids are though, if you tell them not to do something, they'll do the exact opposite and go ahead and do it. That's exactly what Mary did.

The way Frances Hodgson Burnett writes fascinates me. She hooks you into the action of the story on page one, and I love that. I hate it when you have to wait 10 Chapters before the book actually gets interesting. She also tells the reader a load of information in just the first two chapters. I already know what most of the characters are like and why they are like that. I also know the events of the first 10 years of Mary Lennox's life. With this load, I should have a bunch of things to talk about, but the most interesting part to me so far in the first few chapters, was the song the kids in India used to sing about Mary to get her angry. The song went like this: Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, and marigolds all in a row. Why would the kids sing this song to her? I found it quite odd, and I keep asking myself if somewhere along the road of reading the book, we'll find out. After all, the book is called The Secret Garden and the song talks about mistress Mary, and how her garden grows. Oh boy, I'm eager to find out, I have to go and read!