Mary Lennox is a spoiled, and heart sick, girl who has lived in India all her life. She is the only child of a British soldier and his stunningly beautiful wife. Mary is a very plain little girl, and her mother is embarrassed of this fact and clearly lets Mary know it. She keeps Mary back in her room and lets her have all the toys she wants and gives her Nanny after Nanny, but never what Mary really wants- love. As you can guess, by the time she is ten she is a bitter dictator who always gets her way and yet is never really satisfied.

First of all- could the house be haunted? Martha, the housemaid, tries to assures Mary that the noises she hears must surely be the wind and not somebody crying. Mary might be left to her own devices, but she is strictly forbiddent to wander around the house. People seem to be afraid that she'll find something, but what could she find in an old musty house?

The second thing that diverts her attention is a locked garden that has no key. This makes no sense in Mary's cynical mind- a garden that is locked must have been, at some time, able to be unlocked. But no one knows anything about the key.

In the meantime she is cautiously befriending a boy called Dickon who loves the moor and has common sense mixed with compassion. She soon begins to find that is also a good friend. Dickon is curious when she asks him to get her garden tools, and is sworn to secrecy when he finds out where the garden will actually be.

The noises in the old house get louder and more human (or ghost) like. Finally Mary determines that she will find out where the noises come from and is in for the surprise of her life. She finds someone who is just as selfish as she was before meeting Dickon and growing a garden, but she cannot take this person to the garden- can she? She and Dickon begin plotting, and soon something has happened to Mr. Craven, Mary, Dickon and everyone else in the book that is simply wonderful. A true change happens to people when they give up their selfishness and work for other.