The first paragraph of this review has nine-year-old
spoilers for Angel. I don’t know if
anyone cares, but you have been warned.
I recently finished re-watching the series Angel and have
discovered that I still get upset watching Fred’s final scenes. I realized that it had been quite a while
since I reread this book, which Wesley read to Fred before her death, and that
this was an oversight on my part. I have
liked this book since I was a little kid and am hoping that it puts me in a
good mood for next year.
Sara Crewe was raised in India by her wealthy father and
wanted for nothing in the world. While
this kind of treatment would have turned most kids into rotten little brats,
Sara was a kind, old-souled young lady who appreciated everything that she
had. When she is seven, she is sent to
school in London and has to be separated from her father who remains in India. They both take this hard but struggle through
without each other for the next few years, as Sara becomes the star pupil at
Miss Minchin’s boarding school. But on
Sara’s eleventh birthday, Miss Minchin receives word that Captain Crewe has
died and left Sara without a penny to her name.
Without so much as a comforting phrase, Sara is put to work at the
school and treated despicably. Her
determination to act bravely in the face of hostility and retain her
imaginative nature drives the novel to its happy conclusion.
This much beloved classic never gets old for me, although
I’m sure that I was supposed to outgrow it by now. Burnett does not talk down to anyone and even
though Sara might be a little too perfect to be realistic, her writing and
characters stand out. I know that unless
I die really young, that I will read this again and I would hope that more
people would revisit it as well.