A Little Princess

Historical fiction

Print length: 178 pagesScholastic Inc., 2005

Description

Sara Crewe, the imaginative daughter of a wealthy English captain, leaves her childhood in India for an exclusive London boarding school. Her intelligence, generosity, and talent for storytelling win friends among both pupils and servants, even as the headmistress values her chiefly for her fortune. When Sara’s father dies and his investments collapse, she becomes an penniless orphan overnight. Stripped of her room and possessions, she is confined to an attic and forced to work as a servant and tutor. Sara survives hunger, cold, and humiliation by using imagination and treating others with the dignity denied to her. This children’s novel tests whether kindness and self-command can preserve a sense of nobility when wealth and status disappear.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Descriptive · Direct · Lyrical

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Earnest · Hopeful · Melancholic · Warm

Structure

Linear

Focus

Atmosphere · Character · Relationships

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

ClassComing of ageFriendshipIdentitySurvivalWealth

About Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett was a British-American novelist and playwright whose career ranged from magazine stories and popular adult novels to the children’s fiction for which she is now best known. Her children’s books often place isolated young people within rigid households, then trace change through curiosity, imaginative play, friendship, and practical acts of care. Her descriptive prose gives unusual weight to rooms, clothing, gardens, weather, and domestic routines. The plots move through reversals of fortune and the gradual alteration of character rather than constant action. In A Little Princess, Sara Crewe answers poverty and humiliation by telling stories and extending dignity to others, while the attic and boarding school make social rank physically visible. The Secret Garden develops a roomier version of this method. Its locked garden, shadowed manor, and Yorkshire seasons provide the structure for Mary and Colin’s slow movement out of confinement. Burnett’s moral concerns are direct, but they emerge through repeated actions and changing relationships rather than abstract instruction.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Language: English
ISBN: 9780717286799

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