Mom read to us, and we LOVED Winnie the Pooh, The Secret Garden, Dr Seuss, and so many more! I also did a lot of my own reading as well.
I was indeed blesst.
We had the parallel to your Secret Garden, The Lost Prince by the same author. Very hard to find. Mother’s passion was the Graustark series. I have all of hers, and have since collected at least one each of every book by George Barr McCutcheon. I fear that that is where I picked up my speech patterns. Would your mother be, or have been, a Q fan? Mine went nowhere without a mystery in hand. I know she would have been here cheering everyone on. Her father was from Texas.