I’m starting to feel like work is finally starting to come back to a manageable piece of my life, rather than the all-consuming, life-eating monster it was during October.

So let’s try to do some literary housecleaning posts this week. Still to come are reviews of Still to come are reviews of The Woman in White; Diamond Ruby; Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children; 13 Little Blue Envelopes; Ninth Ward; Will Grayson, Will Grayson; The Physics of Imaginary Objects; and Cats Are Weird and More Observations.

But rather than review those, I’ll give you a quick review of a beloved classic, which is the most recent thing I’ve finished:

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

From the jacket: “This is the secret garden, mysterious, walled and locked, that is the center of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s beautiful and moving story of a lonely, willful little girl and how she finds friends, health and happiness when she comes to live in a great house on the Yorkshire moors.”

My take: In the midst of the craziness last month, I stopped reading. Even during those few times left to me when I’d normally read or knit, I instead just sat, staring, exhausted.

This is when you need a best friend to step into the gap and offer you hand and a literary lifesaver. A chance mention of apple picking in an email inspired Karen to seek out a drawing in this childhood favorite. I never found the illustration she was referring to, but Mistress Mary, quite contrary, captured my imagination and related well to the irritated state of being I seemed to be existing in.

I tucked the novel (given to me by my grandmother for my tenth birthday) into my bag and read it in four minute intervals while commuting to work in the morning and for a few minutes at night before dropping into bed. So what probably only took me an afternoon the last time I read it this time took a week to finish. But it was just the balm my tired and grumpy soul needed, and I found my spirit swelling along with Mary’s and my mind expanding with Colin’s under the cheerful chatter of Martha and the calm demeanor of Dickon.

If you have not read the book before, I suggest you quickly run off to the library and procure a copy. A girl born to English parents stationed in occupied India is orphaned and sent to live with a distant relative — a rich widowed uncle who owns (but only occasionally visits) a Yorkshire manor house. The bad-tempered child, used to being waited on by Indian servants, is forced to entertain herself for the first time in her life, and she does so by exploring the estate’s gardens, one of which is rumored to have been locked for a decade at her uncle’s insistence.

Whether she finds it — and what other magic she unearths — makes for a delightful read. Also, a pleasant enough musical (it won several Tonys) should you happen to come across the soundtrack. Be forewarned, however, that the libretto draws heavily on Hodgson Burnett’s text (while taking a few liberties) and listening ahead of your reading may ruin any surprises the book has in store. Should you want a film version, I’d point you to the 1993 movie, rather than the Hallmark Hall of Fame version, which butchers the story by manufacturing an epilogue to the tale.

Pages: 256