Classic Children's Literature

One reason the books likely remain so popular is that both of them feature strong, independent-minded girls as their central characters. In The Secret Garden, the heroine is Mary Lennox, introduced as "the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen" (Burnett 1). The unwanted child of a well-to-do English couple living in India, young Mary is left to the care of servants who indulge her every whim out of fear; before long, Mary grows into "as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived" (Burnett 2). It is her domineering, egocentric nature, however, which allows her to survive the death of her parents and the long, solitary days she endures after relocating to Misselthwaite Manor. Young readers may not admire everything Mary says and does,

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ory, she has not only found satisfaction in her own life, she has helped Colin regain his strength--and that, in turn, brings him and his father closer together. The central character in Little Women is the dreamer Jo March, the tomboy who resents the fact that her gender prevents her from doing things she longs to do: It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boys' games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy; and it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay at home and knit, like a poky old woman (Alcott 5)! Like Mary Lennox, Jo is strong and independent; she likes to "do daring things" (Alcott 45), and she is "not afraid of anything" (Alcott 49). Another quality Jo shares with Mary Lennox is that she can be exceptionally temperamental and disagreeable. After her youngest sister Amy destroys her first manuscript in a fit of vengeance, Jo refuses to forgive her. Her fury is so impenetrable that when Amy follows her, uninvited, for an afternoon of ice skating, Jo fails to warn the little girl about a patch of rotten ice. Only when Amy falls through the ice and nearly drowns are Jo's softer instincts aroused, and so it took a ne
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1567
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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