Mary Lennox, lonely and unwanted, arrives from India to live with her uncle in Yorkshire.

Left to herself there is little to do apart from explore the huge, gloomy house and its surroundings until, one sunny morning, she stumbles across a secret garden, hidden behind ivy-clad walls. For the first time in her sad short life she has found something to care for and she determines to restore the garden to its former glory. As the garden begins to bloom and is magically transformed no one is left untouched...

I love this book, and I'm thrilled I'm going to get to reread it as part of the BBC Big read. It'll be interesting to see if it still has the same effect on me it had as a child.