The Secret Garden Golden Book

The Secret Garden

retold by Fraces Gilbert

illustrated by Brigette Barrager 2017

The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett is one of Madeleine's favorite books.  She particularly liked the character of Mary and the transformation that takes place in her as she becomes caretaker of the secret garden and befriends Colin and Dickon.  This Golden Book version has wonderful modern illustrations that I particularly like.  If the artwork looks familiar, it's because Barrager also did an amazing version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses (along with many other books).

Twelve Dancing Princesses

Twelve Dancing Princesses

Brigette Barrager 2011

I guess you never get too old for beautifully illustrated princesses!  Every time we open this book we have to spend time looking at each princess (named after flowers) and pick our favorites.  It's a hard choice!  The best part is, we have a matching tile game as a companion to this book.  It adds some extra characters and a couple more diverse princesses which is nice.  Maybe it's a symptom of getting older, but Charlotte seems to beat me every time!

The matching game gets plenty of use.