May 2014 Guest Editor Daisy Goodwin on A Little Princess...
This book about a little girl ,who after the death of her father is forced to work as a maid in the school where she was once a parlour boarder, had a profound effect on my imagination. I was transfixed by the scene where Sara Crewe wakes up to find that her drafty garret has been transformed into a bedroom fit for a princess. I read those chapters every night for about three years. It was a great training for my career in makeover tv.
'I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one' Without her beloved father and miles from home, it is very hard for Sara Crewe to like her new life at boarding school. Luckily Sara is always dreaming up wonderful things and her power of telling stories wins her lots of friends. When a letter arrives that brings disastrous news, the wicked headmistress Miss Minchin forces Sara to become a servant. Her lovely clothes and toys are taken away from her. She must work from dawn until midnight. How will Sara cope with her new found poverty? Can her imagination help her overcome this horrible situation?
Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in Manchester in 1849. After living in poverty, she emigrated to the US in 1865. She wrote over forty books; the best-known today are The Secret Garden, A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. She died in 1924.
