The Secret Garden
Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911.
Before you read: Colin is ill and afraid. The book’s talk of “magic” is a story idea, not a medical cure.
Mary Lennox arrives in Yorkshire rude, lonely, and sure she dislikes everyone. She finds a locked garden and a cousin, Colin, who has been kept in bed and told he will not live. With Dickon, a boy who knows the moor, they bring the garden back and start going outside. Burnett is interested in fresh air, friendship, and children who were badly left alone. The garden is a real place in the book, even when the children talk about magic.
Public-domain text.