Into the bright open A Secret garden remix

Cherie Dimaline, 1975-

Book - 2023

Mary Lennox didn’t think about death until the day it knocked politely on her bedroom door and invited itself in. When a terrible accident leaves her orphaned at fifteen, she is sent to the wilderness of the Georgian Bay to live with an uncle she's never met. At first the impassive, calculating girl believes this new manor will be just like the one she left in Toronto: cold, isolating, and anything but cheerful, where staff is treated as staff and never like family. But as she slowly allows her heart to open like the first blooms of spring, Mary comes to find that this strange place and its strange people—most of whom are Indigenous self-named "halfbreeds"—may be what she can finally call home. Then one night Mary disco...vers Olive, her cousin who has been hidden away in an attic room for years due to a "nervous condition." The girls become fast friends, and Mary wonders why this big-hearted girl is being kept out of sight and fed medicine that only makes her feel sicker. When Olive's domineering stepmother returns to the manor, it soon becomes clear that something sinister is going on. With the help of a charming, intoxicatingly vivacious Metis girl named Sophie, Mary begins digging further into family secrets both wonderful and horrifying to figure out how to free Olive. And some of the answers may lie within the walls of a hidden, overgrown and long-forgotten garden the girls stumble upon while wandering the wilds...

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YOUNG ADULT FICTION/Dimaline Cherie
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Subjects
Genres
Gay fiction
Historical fiction
Queer fiction
Novels
Published
New York : Feiwel and Friends 2023.
Language
English
Main Author
Cherie Dimaline, 1975- (author)
Other Authors
Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849-1924 (-)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
274 pages : 22 cm
Audience
Ages 13 and up.
Grades 10-12.
ISBN
9781250842657
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

In this queer YA remix of The Secret Garden---part of Macmillan's Remixed Classics series--Mary Lennox is a disagreeable, spoiled, but deeply lonely 15-year-old girl. When her parents are unexpectedly killed, she is sent to live at her absent uncle Craven's house. Mary's new home is in the wilderness, the servants are like family, and most of them are Indigenous--all of which is foreign to Mary, who has grown up in the city. However, Mary soon befriends the family's Métis servant Flora, develops romantic feelings for Flora's sister Sophie, and discovers the presence of a thrilling secret in the house. But just as Mary's life is looking brighter, her stepmother, Rebecca, returns and puts everything at risk. Despite the main character's age, the book feels more middle grade than YA, and the conflict at the end is wrapped up a tad too quickly. On the other hand, it's refreshing to see an initially unsympathetic teen girl as a main character in a YA book. Readers who have and haven't read the source material are likely to enjoy this novel.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Thorny secrets haunt a country house--a girl in an attic, a lost key, and an overgrown garden locked behind a hidden gate. After the unexpected deaths of her parents, 15-year-old Mary Craven is uprooted from Toronto to live at her estranged uncle's manor on Ontario's Georgian Bay. Far from the city and surrounded by unfamiliar people, Mary tries to guard her insecurities. But her uncle's young housekeeper, the charming and confident Flora, sees the loneliness behind Mary's infamous temper. Drawn in by a yearning for family and captivated by stories about Flora's free-spirited younger sister, Mary begins to explore and ask questions that lead her to mysteries surrounding her absent uncle's estate: the presence of Olive, her chronically ill cousin who's confined to her bed in the attic, and a locked garden whose gate can only be opened with a missing key. A fast friendship blooms between Mary and Olive, but when Rebecca, Olive's domineering stepmother, returns, Mary risks exile to boarding school unless she abides by Rebecca's rules. Writing in the third-person omniscient primarily from Mary's perspective, Dimaline reimagines The Secret Garden in Métis territory. Mary, Rebecca, and Uncle Craven are white; most other characters, including Olive, are Métis. Racism, colonization, and a love of nature are central themes gracefully woven into the story. An aching and emotionally immersive queer romance, unhampered by homophobia, unfolds through lush imagery blended with poignant and elegant prose. A rich and verdant revival of a classic. (Historical fiction. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.