A Bit of Earth

A Bit of Earth by Rebecca Smith


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
When a book is called A Bit of Earth and the main character has the surname Misselthwaite (spelling?) it is obviously trying to link itself to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (the hall is called Misselthwaite and there is a chapter called A Bit of Earth, as that is what Mary asks her uncle for). So I was expecting a book about the healing power of nature, which isn't really what this is about. There is less about the garden than I thought there would be.

But although there are obvious similarities with Secret Garden (a man whose wife dies (not in a garden) neglects his son) I preferred the grand strokes of the children's book to the quietness of this book. It was OK. I just wasn't that enthralled. I didn't like Guy, I thought his treatment of his son was worse than the book seemed to suggest (perhaps because I have a little boy).

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