A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
As a kid, The Secret Garden was the most magical thing I could think of. For some reason, I never read A Little Princess back then. Perhaps I would have liked it more then; as it is, I found it preachy and tedious. It’s very… Victorian: a child is in good circumstances, has a fall from grace, but her own merits of character finally result in a restoration. Unlike Mary from The Secret Garden, Sara Crewe is tediously saccharine and goody-goody.
I don’t really see why other people love this so much — especially if there’s no element of nostalgia. At least The Secret Garden’s Mary has character — Sara Crewe feels like, well, a Mary Sue. I am a little scared to ever reread The Secret Garden, now…
Man, you are so wrong on Sara’s character.
Entirely possible! To me she read very much as the perfect Victorian child, though.