From the November/December 2000 issue of The Horn Book Magazine

Future Classics

y choice would be The Secret Garden — which has already been around for close to one hundred years—because it reminds me of a time that moved more slowly, that had no glitz or sound bites. I like the fact that Mary Lennox is not pretty, that she is not a gifted child, does not take dancing lessons or gymnastics, and that when she becomes friends with the elderly gardener, no one suspects that he might be a pedophile.

And — okay, I confess — I would choose it for the memory of gardens, of moist earth and glistening worms and new shoots of pale green. I don’t think flower gardens will exist in 2101. They’ll take too much time, too much effort, and too much space in a crowded, frantically busy world. By then, if you want a quick hit of color and fragrance, you’ll get it in some technological fashion: a virtual lilac, perhaps, or a click-this-icon-for-daffodils.

I doubt if many kids read The Secret Garden today. They’ve seen the movie, or the musical: Download, Quicktime, Videorent. Hear Mary and Colin belt out those songs! See Dickon dance! Pause, rewind, and rerun if you were distracted by the phone or had to go off to soccer camp.

But I would like next century’s children to know the languor of loneliness, the anguish of neglect, and the sweet frisson that secrecy gives. And if only, through the leisurely pace of pages, they could learn of the patience, tenderness, and nurture that once brought flowers — and young humans — into bloom.

—Lois Lowry