Fifty-five books every girl should read

I seem to be in the mood for compiling book lists at the moment. I felt inspired to make a list of the books that were my "best friends" as a very young girl. Okay, I'm still young, but I've got the 8-14 age bracket in mind here. These are books that I would love to share with my daughter/s one day, if I ever have any. . . I've been trying to get my younger sisters to read some of these books, but I guess they have other interests and hobbies right now. Hopefully I'll be blessed with at least one bookworm daughter someday. :-)

~L.M. Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables books and others~

Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island
Anne of Windy Willows
Anne's House of Dreams
Anne of Ingleside
Rainbow Valley
Rilla of Ingleside
Emily of New Moon
Emily Climbs
Emily's Quest
Jane of Lantern Hill

~Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House on the Prairie series~

Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
On the Banks of Plum Creek
By the Shores of Silver Lake
The Long Winter
Little Town on the Prairie
These Happy Golden Years

~C.S. Lewis - The Chronicles of Narnia~

The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

~L.M. Alcott - Little Women books and others~

Little Women
Good Wives
Little Men
Jo's Boys
Eight Cousins
Rose in Bloom
An Old-Fashioned Girl
The Inheritance

~Arleta Richardson - Grandma's Attic novels~

Away from Home
A School of Her Own
Wedding Bells Ahead
At Home in North Branch
New Faces, New Friends

~Johanna Spyri and Charles Tritten - Heidi books~

Heidi
Heidi Grows Up
Heidi's Children

~Ethel Turner - Seven Little Australians series~

Seven Little Australians
The Family at Misrule
Little Mother Meg

~Frances Hodgson Burnett~

The Secret Garden
A Little Princess 

~Patricia St John~

The Tanglewood's Secret
Treasures of the Snow
Rainbow Garden

~Miscellaneous~

Mara, Daughter of the Nile - Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm - Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie - May Gibbs

A Girl of the Limberlost - Gene Stratton-Porter

Pollyanna - Eleanor H. Porter

~~~~~

What are some of the books that you loved as a young girl? Are there any classics for girls that I have apparently missed out on, and should read ASAP? :P

Andrew Davies: BBC costume drama going "Downmarket"?

Yet another adaptation of David Copperfield? *Yawns* (A very cute, very young Daniel Radcliffe in the BBC's 1999 adaptation)

Thanks to Charleybrown, for the link!

Have a look at this article from the Telegraph.

Andrew Davies, television's master of literary adaptations and the writer behind the BBC's award-winning Bleak House, Little Dorrit and Pride and Prejudice, said the corporation is interested only in the "popular warhorses" of literary fiction. 

His planned adaptations of Dombey and Son, one of Charles Dickens' lesser-read stories, and of the Palliser novels by Anthony Trollope, were both scrapped. Instead, the BBC has asked for a re-tread of David Copperfield, which has had numerous television outings. 

(Click here to read the full article and interview with Andrew Davies.)

Auntie Beeb - what are you thinking? Tired rehashes of popular Austen and Dickens novels instead of fresh adaptations of forgotten gems? As much as I love both Austen and Dickens, the last thing we need is another TV version of David Copperfield.

Daniela-Denby-Ashe in North and South

Look at the success of the BBC's Elizabeth Gaskell adaptations - North and South, Wives and Daughters, and Cranford. The immense popularity of these series has spawned a Gaskell revival of sorts, with Mrs. Gaskell's books finally getting the readership they deserve. Or Lark Rise to Candleford, based on a series of books by Flora Thompson that few people had heard of only 3 years ago. Now, the BBC's Lark Rise is into it's third series, and going strong.

BBC, if you're going to restrict future costume dramas to popular classics that have already been adapted for television umpteen times, please, just don't bother. 

Now - on a more constructive note, here are 10 forgotten classics that I would LOVE to see the BBC take on:

1. Evelina by Fanny Burney (BBC, if you don't want to do any more 19th century "bonnet dramas", how about adapting some pre-bonnet-era classics?)

2. Cecilia by Fanny Burney

3. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

4. Villette by Charlotte Bronte (this would be difficult to adapt, but incredible to watch if it was done right!)

5. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

6. Belinda by Maria Edgeworth

7. Any L.M. Montgomery book, but I'd love it if they did an adaptation of The Blue Castle (perhaps a co-production with a Canadian TV network?).

8. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Okay, okay, I said I didn't want any more Austen adaptations. But this is the one exception. Mansfield Park is, in my opinion, Jane Austen's best novel, and yet there is still no satisfactory film version. Yes, it would be difficult to translate to screen, but if anyone were to be up to the challenge, it would be the BBC - right? Or so I thought. . . :-( 

9. Any one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays. The BBC made a brief return to Shakespeare in 2005 with four Shakespeare stories set in the modern-day world (ShakespeaRetold), but I'd like to see some Shakespeare in it's original setting. It doesn't have to be big-budget, just well acted, with a good script! Duh! Exotic locations aren't necessary, either. Do one of the Histories that are set in England.

10. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. One of my favourite books as a little girl. Make it into a two-part Christmas special, or something like that. The 1995 version changed the book, the characters, the ending. . . it even changed the setting from late-19th-century England to WWI-era America. The 1986 version was better, but it's getting a bit dated.

Okay, strictly speaking, these aren't "literary adaptations", but I think they'd be worth making all the same:

*A biopic of Fanny Burney

*A biopic of the Brontes

~~~~~

What are some of your favourite books that you would *love* to see made into a movie or TV series?

A Little Princess 1986 ON DVD!!!

Oh my goodness, I am so excited!!! My favourite adaptation of one of my favourite books is FINALLY available on DVD! It was released just this month. I am buying it ASAP! This is the only movie/tv version that follows the book. The 1995 version changes the characters, the setting (from Victorian London to WWI America) - it even changes the plot. The Shirley Temple version isn't much better. If you like Frances Hodgeson Burnett's book, you have to see this adaptation! 

I watched A Little Princess 1986 on Youtube earlier this year - at the time, I bemoaned the fact that it was only available second-hand on VHS. I had no idea then that it would released on DVD just a couple of months later. :-D

Click here to buy from Amazon, here to watch it on Youtube, or here to read my full review of A Little Princess 1986.

Current Mood: Excited

The Secret Garden 1993

While we've all been sick with whooping cough these last few weeks, we've been renting quite a few DVDs - mostly animated films, of which I thought the most memorable were: Flushed Away, Horton Hears a Who, and Kung Fu Panda -- Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie was also okay. Last week, we rented - amongst several other movies - The Secret Garden.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post concerning Frances Hodgeson Burnett's classic book. Considering that I've recently been re-reading The Secret Garden, renting the DVD just now was especially timely! Here are a few of my thoughts on The Secret Garden movie, in relation to the book, and as a movie in and of itself. I'm assuming most of you know the plot. :-)

I think the overall message put across by the film is one of healing - both internal healing, and, in Colin Craven's case, external/physical healing as well. Four hurting people are thrown in each other's way, and they each, in some way or another, contribute to the healing of the others. Ten-year-old Mary Lennox; Ben Weatherstaff, the crabby old gardener; Mary's cousin, Colin, also ten years old; and Mary's uncle/Colin's father, Archibald Craven, still desperately wounded ten years after the death of his beloved wife.

The story is told primarily through the eyes of a child, Mary. I first saw this movie many years ago, when I was a very small child myself. These two factors combined made viewing the movie again the other day a deeply moving, somewhat nostalgic experience. This film does not in any way push a sentimental Victorian view of childhood - all of the children in the story are very real and very imperfect. The scene where Mary is dreaming/reminiscing was particularly moving and heart-rending to watch. We see a very young child, only two or three years old, walking with her mother. Suddenly, the mother is swept away - by the wind, or some unknown force (it's a dream, remember) - and the child is left deserted - by herself - utterly alone and unprotected in the world, with no mother to nurture her, care for her, love her, protect her. This is symbolic of Mary's loss - not so much the death of her mother, but rather her mother's failure to play a role in Mary's life while she was still living. When her mother dies, Mary, at the age of ten, didn't - couldn't grieve for her mother, because she never knew her. Mrs. Lennox was always totally absorbed in her own life - she barely seemed aware of her daughter's existence.

The other major theme of the story is new life springing up in place of death. As the Spring comes, and the Secret Garden comes to life, so does life seep back into the hearts of Mary, Colin, and eventually Mr. Craven. Colin, previously spoilt rotten and harbouring a morbidity in his mind unnatural in a child of ten, is jolted back to life and reality by the presence of his cousin, Mary, and their friend, Dickon - a precocious boy with a passion for animals and the moor.

Mr. Craven, traversing Europe in search of peace of mind and some relief from his heartache, is startled by a dream in which he hears his late wife's voice calling him. . . "Archie. . . Archie! In the garden! I'm in the garden. . ." He rushes back to his Yorkshire estate, where he eventually makes his way back to the garden which he and his wife tended together, so many years ago. No longer is the garden empty and unoccupied - he finds in it a glory of flowers, trees, all in full bloom. He finds his niece, Mary - the daughter of his darling wife's sister, the little girl whom he had previously ignored - and he finds his son, Colin, who desperately loves his father, and has been anxiously awaiting his return. New life and healing has come at last, in the hearts of three people, now finally together as a family.

Whew - sorry if I rambled a bit, there. I just had to get that out of my system. :-) The psychological aspect of this story has struck me as being particularly profound and insightful and full of symbolism, especially so for a children's book, published almost a century ago.

If you're wanting to watch this movie, I should warn you about a couple of scenes. This film is well and truly a product of the '90s - by this I mean that it follows the [at the time] fashionable trend seen in other 1990s childrens movies (such as A Little Princess 1995, and even Disney movies such as The Lion King and Pocahontas) of emphasising the spiritual, and even hinting at some distinctly New Age philosophy. There are slightly disturbing New Age-y undertones to one scene in particular in The Secret Garden. We usually just fast-forward through this bit.

That being said, I highly recommend this film for anyone, except perhaps very young children, for whom some scenes may be too disturbing.

I didn't like some of the changes made from the book. I felt that there was plenty of room to develop the roles of some of the secondary characters - especially Ben Weatherstaff, and Mrs. Sowerby, who doesn't even get a mention in the movie! It all seemed a little bit too rushed - I would have been happy to sit through another 30 - 40 minutes, if it would have allowed them to include more details from the book. I don't know, maybe because it was a children's movie [though in reality it makes excellent viewing for adults as well as children] they felt that they had to keep it short so as not to lose the attention of their young viewers. (?)

Still, it's a wonderful movie. The guy who played Mr. Craven seemed a bit too creepy - what's with the hair?! But the acting from all of the child actors was first-class. The soundtrack is absolutely beautiful - very emotive, and perfect suited to the film. It was beautifully filmed, fully capturing the untameable beauty of the moor, the eeriness and mystery of Misselthwaite Manor, and the glorious wonder-filled atmosphere of the Secret Garden itself.

4 out of 5 stars. :-)

One more thing -- have any of you seen the BBC 1987 adaptation of The Secret Garden? Was it any good?

Current Mood:  Annoyed

VERY annoyed with myself!!!! Aarrgh! There was an item on eBay which I was keeping an eye on, and guess what - I completely forgot about it while writing the above post, so now I miss out! >:-(

A Little Princess 1986

Frances Hodgeson Burnett's children's classic A Little Princess has been a great favourite of mine for many years. When I as around five or six years old, my mother bought a pocket-sized illustrated abridged version of this book, which she would read aloud to me.

The story captured my imagination. It inspired me, this tale of a girl who loses everything yet still tries to behave with the true goodness and graciousness of a princess. As Elizabeth wrote in this recent post at A Maiden's Wreath, there's something magical in the idea of pretending to be a princess, no matter how miserable one's circumstances are.

When I was older, I read the complete version, and enjoyed it just as much.

And now I am very happy to say that I have found what I think could be classified as the definitive version of A Little Princess - it's an obscure, lesser-known tv adaptation made for a U.S. tv network in 1986.

It is, for the most part, reasonably faithful to the book - much more so than either the 1939 or 1995 versions. Many of the characters seemed as though they had stepped straight from the pages of the book! The actresses who played Miss Minchin, Miss Amelia, most of the schoolgirls and Becky were particularly well cast, I thought.

Amelia Shankley plays Sara Crewe, the heroine. At first she seemed to me to be too old for the part - she was about 14 years old when this was being filmed - but she did such a fantastic job; and the costumes made her look younger, too. Clothes for Victorian little girls were so pretty - I loved the outfits worn by most of the girls in this movie, they were all so lovely and frilly. . .

But back to Amelia Shankley - she truly was wonderful as Sara. She has such beautiful, expressive eyes. I don't know whether or not she is still acting, but she certainly showed a great deal of talent at a very early age in this production.

In fact, I was very impressed with pretty much all of the acting. I thought the actors here were in general better than the those in the 1995 version. Ironic, considering the '95 version was a (comparatively) big-budget Hollywood production, whereas this was just a small, made-for-tv movie. . . Oh well, I guess it just goes to show once again that the British know better than anyone how to do period drama!

Another thing that I noticed here was that this version did a much better job in getting across to the viewer just how dark and bleak Sara's existence was. She really was in a horrible situation, and her heart and mind were not immune to it - princess that she was, bitterness and distrust still managed to creep in a little. This adaptation did not shirk from this darker aspect of the story. I am glad, because it adds depth and realism to Sara's character.

Finally, I was pleased to find that they stuck with the original ending for the story, just the way it is, straight from the book. Both of the other versions changed the ending to make fuzzier and more feel-good, but the ending as it is in the book is much better - maybe not happier, but more believable, and ultimately still full of hope.

So, I now have you all ready to go out and buy the DVD ( :D ), but guess what - it isn't available on DVD! *Collective groan*. . . It is such a shame. I know there are a great many people who would buy it if only it were available on DVD. Someone ought to put together a petition for Little Princess fans to sign, then we'd make them put it onto dvd. . .

If you want to, you can buy the VHS second-hand from certain places, Amazon included.

But wait, here's the good news - some wonderful person has posted A Little Princess, in its entirety, on Youtube! Click here to watch part 1.

I should add that it is a miniseries in two parts - altogether, it goes for close to three hours, so you may want to watch it over a period of several days, as I did. Then again, you might want to watch all of it in one go - I've heard of people who will watch all 5 hours of Pride and Prejudice '95 in one sitting. . .

Here's the IMDb page if you want to read more information or reviews of A Little Princess. It has a user rating of 9 out of 10 from 200 votes - a remarkably high rating for IMDb. . .

Current mood: Tired

The Secret Garden

Under the Dock Leaves - An Autumnal Evening's Dream, by Richard Doyle. Image from ArtMagick.com -- click here to view full size image

Over the last few days I have been reading Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden aloud to my seven-year-old sister. We have both been enjoying it a great deal. It has been some years since I last read The Secret Garden. As I read it again now, I see it through fresh eyes. The magic of this classic book works itself upon me in new ways.

It's strange how, as we grow older, we see the same scene in such a vastly different light. We understand certain elements of a story as we never did before, and we notice various little details that seemed insignificant before.

It is the mark of a true classic - the ability to transcend time (The Secret Garden was first published in 1911) and reach beyond a reader's age and experience . It touches the soul, it seems to reach out to something in our humanity, so that no matter what background we come from, or whether we are old or young, it moves something deep within us. And if we would glean what we can from some such book, we will be a better person as result of having read it!

The person who cannot appreciate and learn from good literature must be a fool indeed. . . however, I don't know that I have ever met with such a person. It seems to me pretty much everyone is moved by a good story well-told. :-)