Just as Saturday morning TV programing was reserved for kids, Saturday mornings on PWR bring recommendations for kids’ reading.

Today’s recommendation also happens to be my April selection for The Classics Club, a kid’s classic, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

After a young girl’s parents are killed in India, she is sent to live with a reclusive uncle (her mother’s sister’s husband) in a gloomy, old Victorian mansion. There she meets her invalid cousin, her uncle’s son, and later a local boy who runs unsupervised among the property. Left to her own devices to entertain herself, the girl finds a door in the overgrown, neglected garden wall that leads to a glorious, wild and beautiful garden which has been untouched for years and years. Convinced the garden has healing qualities, she convinces her cousin to come and see. The three children begin to cultivate and improve the garden, and as the garden improves so does the cousin.

In an exciting, almost tragic ending, the old Biblical lesson, “…and a little child shall lead them.” comes to fruition as the girl restores beauty and joy to the house and the characters themselves. It is a lovely, uplifting story that is bound to improve anyone’s mood and spirit. I highly recommend it. Perhaps it is better approached as a read-together novel by parent or grandparent and child, since the wording is a bit old-fashioned, and some words may need explaining.