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This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.

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Prepare yourself for some off-the-cuff book talk as I tackle another middle grade book chapter by chapter.

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Big surprise in Secret Garden Chavirton we finally get to meet Dickon. He pops up in an unexpected place.

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He's almost framed and represented as like Pan, you know, the nature spirit I'll say. He's playing his pipe.

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His little rough, rude, rude, rude, his rude wood pipe that makes kind of a funny sound, kind of a funny whistling sound.

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And there are rabbits and I don't know what else, maybe the robin or some other birds with him.

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And he tells Mary to be quiet and not to disturb them so they don't run off.

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Or, you know, so she doesn't put them to flight, I think is how he says it, which is kind of fun.

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I find it interesting the Yorkshire accent almost has kind of a more old-timey structure to the sentencing as well.

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Like Martha says thou and things like that, whereas the other people don't. Mary definitely doesn't say thou.

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She's a you person, not a thou person. And I wonder why that is. I don't know linguistically what that's all about.

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But it's kind of charming and it's fun how Dickon speaks differently from Mary, as does Martha.

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And they're also markedly different characters, markedly different people from her, not only in class, but also in their familial surroundings and their personal...

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You know, they're better nicer people than her, is what I'm trying to say nicely.

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And I find that to be a really interesting dynamic and I really like this meeting, this introduction between Dickon and Mary.

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And it's very sweet and very innocent and while there's a shadow of a doubt in my mind about what might happen,

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because I vaguely remember something in the movie from when I was a kid that it felt like there was a weird thing that happened with them and another character later on,

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who I won't talk about now just in case you're not familiar with the book, if you're joining me reading this for the first time, which would be incredible to know.

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But regardless, I don't want to spoil anything and I don't know what's in the book versus what's in the movie, so I don't want to assume.

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And well, you know what happens when you assume. Anyway.

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We get to see Mary again working at the garden and letting Dickon in on the secret of the secret garden, which is what she calls it,

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and having that trepidation over not wanting it to be exposed and then therefore shut down again.

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And I return to Burnett mentions that she kind of returns to being her old self, the high and mighty lady or whatever of India,

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and she becomes very quick to guard the secret garden and to not want anybody to know about it,

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not want her uncle Craven to know about it so that he shuts it down and doesn't allow her to be in there anymore because it's something so valuable and so meaningful to her.

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And I found that interesting. I like that Mary's transformation as a character is not complete.

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And it's very realistic, both for a child and for, well, anybody at any age that when you arrive at a solution,

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when you arrive at a resolution, just because you want to do something doesn't mean you will do it.

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Just because you want to become a better person doesn't mean that the old you, that the flaws, the foibles,

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the mistakes that you made won't creep back up and appear again in a very unflattering way from time to time.

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And it's sad, but real and realistic and heartening to some extent that there's this little life lesson in here

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that as much as you try to be better, as much as you grow, you have to stay on top of yourself

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and not allow the negative parts of you, the worst parts of yourself to take over and to come to the fore.

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And I thought that was really interesting. And that's kind of my takeaway from the chapter in some ways.

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That and Dickon is really cool. So, yeah, that's what I'm going to say for now.

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Again, I really like this one and I jumped into the next chapter, but I had to pull myself back because time would not allow me to go forward just yet.

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I'm just going to pace myself and be patient with this and read it when I can and really be able to enjoy it and focus on it when I can

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and also find time to talk about it when I can as well. But I would love to just listen to the whole thing.

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But anyway, I really hope that this becomes one of my top favorite books. And it's kind of funny to me that it might join Little Women and Anne of Green Gables

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as one of my favorite books, which is funny because they're just such feminine books, such different books.

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These household drama. Is that what it was called? Oh, man.

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Louisa May Alcott uses the phrase in her book, she calls it domestic drama or domestic something.

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And that's exactly what this is, I think. It feels like it's very much in the same genre.

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I guess you could say the same subgenre as Little Women and Anne of Green Gables.

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And it's really compelling. It's really, really compelling. It's a lot of fun. And I enjoy it.

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I enjoy it a lot. It's funny in between for recreation. I'm also listening to some Arthurian stuff and a Robin Hood retelling as well.

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And they're dissimilar from each other. I mean, those two are similar to each other a little bit, but they're very dissimilar from this.

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And it's just fun because I can I can value them equally. And I was having a bad a real bad day and night before I started this other.

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It's a hard pile of the book before I started that. I was thinking, you know, maybe I should listen to Jurassic Park again, because I like Jurassic Park a lot.

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It's a really fun book. And it's just funny that in the same day, I can enjoy this little girl, this 10 year old girl, oh, and Dickens 12, about two years older than her.

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So that's good to keep in mind for the future. You know, I can be enjoying this story so much.

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And then I can say, you know, I'm feeling kind of crappy and I don't want to have to do this.

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I don't want to like force myself to read this book for content and for making something out of it.

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So I'm going to listen to something that's like a cozy book, which is Jurassic Park, which doesn't seem like it should be a cozy book, but it kind of is for me.

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I had a really interesting experience with that, which maybe I'll talk about later because it isn't appropriate for now.

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Not that it's inappropriate. It just doesn't fit for now because I should just be talking about Secret Garden, which I will continue to do in the next one.

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Check out the show notes. Good. I'm doing a second file. Actually, yeah.

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If you want to be a part of what I'm doing, which I'm reading books that are good and beautiful and valuable and that will help people to grow,

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will help people to see more of life and to be better than who they are. I want to write books like that that are entertaining,

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but also very inspiring and invaluable pieces of somebody's literary canon, their own personal literary canon.

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You can go to growbugs.com where I have a email list, sign up sort of thing set up or being set up right now for people to sign up for my books,

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which are about magical bugs, battle monsters and helping kids grow along the way.

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I invite you to go to growbugs.com if you like the kind of wholesome content coming out or the kind of wholesome story that is Secret Garden so far.

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I'm not saying I'm a Burnett or an Alcott or any of these other people, but I am definitely trying to write these kinds of books.

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What I mean is good, beautiful, wholesome, exciting, engaging books.

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I think the growbug books you will find definitely fit the bill.

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Definitely a different setting and genre, but they definitely fit the bill and are definitely going to be appropriate for kids and children of all ages,

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or kids and adults together.

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I encourage you to check that out and see what I have going on over there.

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And don't forget to tell me what you think about this book as well, whether it be Chapter 10 or Secret Garden as a whole.

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I'd rather you not spoil me if you can avoid it, so maybe you want to hold off until the end or just drop little hints here and there.

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That could be fun too.

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I hope you enjoyed that. Please remember to like, share, subscribe.

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I invite you to comment, ask questions and share your thoughts with me.

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It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation.

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Until next time, keep reading, be well and do good things.

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Visit MJMUNOZ.COM for more of my work and help me build up the fortress fiction.