(Half a) Story Hour - Episode 1
Episode 1, “The Secret Garden:
We Start Chapter One”
In this episode, we start reading The Secret Garden, a story written by Frances Hodgson Burnett and first published in 1911. We meet Mary Lennox, our main character, and talk lots about the history hinted at in this made-up story – so that we can read it responsibly today!
Tough stuff in this episode: unhappy childhood, cholera, the British Empire
⭐️ Bonus ⭐️
Follow along here: The Secret Garden at Project Gutenberg Online
(Inter)active reading suggestion: Ask (big) questions!
For teachers: Students draw a thought bubble on a piece of paper and write down any of the questions we ask (and any of their own questions!) ✏️ 💭
Musical interlude: “Introduction and Royal March of the Lion” from Le Carnaval des animaux by Camille Saint-Saëns
Other Links…
“Hedwig’s Theme” by John Williams for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, provided to YouTube by Atlantic Records… doesn’t it sound like the “Royal March of the Lion?” 👑🦁
Camille Saint-Saëns’ Le Carnaval des animaux was written so long ago that it’s in the public domain, so it’s no problem for composers like (Canadian 🍁) Howard Shore to (maybe) pay tribute to it in pieces like this one - “Thrice Welcome” for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug… 🐉
I hear more of our royal lion!
The little scene embossed on the front of our old edition of The Secret Garden… probably the work of Ernest H. Shepard!
The title page illustration of our edition of The Secret Garden - all illustrations in the book are by Ernest H. Shepard.
Easter 🪺: your “fairy tale auntie” has a cold! You can hear it… :)