The Secret Garden

Young Mary Lennox, a sullen, sickly, unaffectionate child, is left an orphan when her father and mother die in a cholera epidemic. She is sent to live with her uncle in a gloomy old mansion in Yorkshire, England. Her uncle is a hunchback and a widower, and spends much time away from home.

Mary is left to her own devices for the most part. Her strange new surroundings began to draw her out of her selfish, spoiled mindset. She gradually comes to like Martha, the young servant who tends to her, and makes friends with Martha's brother Dickon, an animal lover.

Mary goes into the gardens to play, and discovers a walled-up area with no visible door. She learns that this was her aunt's garden, and that it's been shut up for ten years. Mary then starts a quest to get in the garden and bring it back to life. It is a task that will bring as much life to her as it does to the plants she tends.

Things become even more interesting for her late one night when she follows the sound of wailing and discovers that she has a cousin, Colin, who is the same age as her, and an invalid. They have been kept apart because Colin has a fear of strangers seeing him, and will go into hysterics if that happens. But he doesn't react that way with Mary, and it turns out that getting to know her is the best thing that has ever happened to Colin.

As the secret garden blooms, so does the life and health of Mary and Colin, and eventually the garden's magic spreads to Uncle Archie as well, bringing him home and teaching him to love his son as he never has before.