About The Secret Garden – On a Diet : Abridged:
The Secret Garden — On a Diet This is an abridged version of The Secret Garden and modern translation of the dialect. The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett has been a popular book for almost a century, but age is catching up with it. Two issues are evident: yards of description and nearly impenetrable dialect. Readers today have seen settings such as castles and sprawling manor houses, so paragraphs of description are no longer necessary. Dialect has almost disappeared from popular writing. Readers find the sentence “Nowt o’ th’ soart!” baffling. I’ve put The Secret Garden on a diet and reduced it to 20 percent of its original size. Get on with the story!
Buy the book:
Author Bio:
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (24 November 1849 – 29 October 1924) was an American-English novelist and playwright. She is best known for the three children’s novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (published in 1885–1886), A Little Princess (1905), and The Secret Garden (1911).
This abridged version is by John Hudson Tiner, an editor and author. He has written more than 100 books, including more than 20 non-fiction books for children and young adults.