We recently marked the winter solstice in my part of the world, and I’m so relieved that we’re now slowly edging towards the “longer” days and milder temperatures of spring. I’m already extracting as much sensory value as possible from every brief outdoor errand, despite the grayness, the wind, and the ongoing threat of Covid-19: sniffing the air in local parks when I’m alone and can remove my mask, turning my face to catch a ray of winter sun, taking close visual note of evergreen trees and any lingering greenery in my neighborhood.

I’ve reread a few favorite works of children’s literature over the past year, including two that employ secluded, leafy spaces as symbols of renewal and transformation. One is Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911), in which a pair of lonely children observe the arrival of springtime in a long-forgotten garden…

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