"I see dead people". So said the little boy in the Hollywood Blockbuster The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis. The little girl in Frances Burnetts The White People doesnt put it quite like that, but she does have the same special gift. She too sees ghosts, and she refers to them as the white people, because thats what they are to her. This classic ghost story is set in the Scottish Highlands, a place full of legends and mystery. This wouldnt be a Frances Burnett novel without a castle or two, and sure enough, the little girl lives in one. Her parents where high born, and so is she, but now shes an orphan, with only servants and ghosts to keep her company.
When their parents suddenly die, siblings José and Pepita are left in the care of their grandmother, already an old woman. Their uncle is a wealthy man, yet he only helps by giving the children some fallen fruit to eat every now and again. Life is hard in rural Spain during the 19th century, and from a young age Jose must work in his uncles vineyards. Jose is slow and simple, while his sister, seemingly the more fortunate of the two, grows more beautiful every day. Surely a girl of such beauty must be destined for greater things, suggests the village priest, Padre Alejandro. He tells the children to travel to Madrid, and so they do, but life in the big city turns out to be just as hard as life in the countryside, and much more complicated... The Pretty Sister of Jose by Frances Hodgson Burnett is not only a tale of struggle and romance. It is also a political commentary on the position of girls and women in a society that favours the limited few.Enjoy Burnetts descriptions of 19th-century Madrid with colorful markets where the smell of jasmine and orange fruits hangs heavy in the air, like the set of a film by Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar.
After the death of her parents, the neglected and spoiled Mary Lennox is sent to her uncle''s large and lonely house on the Yorkshire Moors. There she discovers a secret garden and with the help of h
Illus.: Maurice L. Bower / *****A "C" Following a Project Gutenberg eBook Number Indicates Copyright**** / *****A "*" Following a Project Gutenberg eBook Number Indicates Reserved **** / Mon Year Tit
