Into the Bright Open: A Secret Garden Remix

by Cherie Dimaline

A Canadian wilderness reimagining of The Secret Garden

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A Canadian wilderness reimagining of The Secret Garden

Set in the Georgian Bay wilderness, Cherie Dimaline’s retelling recasts Mary Lennox as a fifteen-year-old sent to live with an uncle after becoming orphaned. The manor’s Indigenous residents and unfamiliar family ties reshape the story’s sense of home, while Mary’s discovery of her hidden cousin Olive introduces a mystery involving secrecy, confinement, and medicine. Sophie, a Métis girl, joins Mary in searching for answers, with a long-forgotten garden becoming part of their exploration. The book is also presented as a queer remix that challenges the original’s white and cisgender-heterosexual framing, placing questions of belonging and family within a specifically Canadian setting.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

Teens and young adults interested in a retelling of The Secret Garden.
Readers seeking YA fiction with Indigenous characters and a Georgian Bay setting.
Those interested in queer reinterpretations of classic literature.

Themes

Belonging and homeFamily secretsQueer reinterpretation of a classicIndigenous representationFreedom and confinement

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A Governor General's Literary Award in Young People's Literature Finalist

"Aching and emotionally immersive. ... A rich and verdant revival of a classic." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

A newly orphaned girl is sent to the Canadian wilderness to live with relatives she's never met, only to discover her new home is full of secrets both wonderful and horrifying in this lyrical retelling of The Secret Garden.

Mary Lennox didn't think about death until the day it knocked politely on her bedroom door and invited itself in. When a terrible accident leaves her orphaned at fifteen, she is sent to the wilderness of the Georgian Bay to live with an uncle she's never met.

At first the impassive, calculating girl believes this new manor will be just like the one she left in Toronto: cold, isolating, and anything but cheerful, where staff is treated as staff and never like family. But as she slowly allows her heart to open like the first blooms of spring, Mary comes to find that this strange place and its strange people--most of whom are Indigenous--may be what she can finally call home.

Then one night Mary discovers Olive, her cousin who has been hidden away in an attic room for years due to a "nervous condition." The girls become fast friends, and Mary wonders why this big-hearted girl is being kept out of sight and fed medicine that only makes her feel sicker. When Olive's domineering stepmother returns to the manor, it soon becomes clear that something sinister is going on.

With the help of a charming, intoxicatingly vivacious Metis girl named Sophie, Mary begins digging further into family secrets both wonderful and horrifying to figure out how to free Olive. And some of the answers may lie within the walls of a hidden, overgrown and long-forgotten garden the girls stumble upon while wandering the wilds...

This queer YA reimagining of The Secret Garden subverts the cishet and white status quo of the original.

The Remixed Classics Series

In the Remixed Classics series, authors from marginalized backgrounds reinterpret classic works through their own cultural lens to subvert the overwhelmingly cishet, white, and male canon.

A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix by C.B. Lee
So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix by Bethany C. Morrow
Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix by Aminah Mae Safi
What Souls Are Made Of: A Wuthering Heights Remix by Tasha Suri
Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore
My Dear Henry: A Jekyll & Hyde Remix by Kalynn Bayron
Teach the Torches to Burn: A Romeo & Juliet Remix by Caleb Roehrig
Into the Bright Open: A Secret Garden Remix by Cherie Dimaline
Most Ardently: A Pride & Prejudice Remix by Gabe Cole Novoa
This Wretched Beauty: A Dorian Gray Remix by Elle Grenier

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