Thirteen Log Cabins

When Zoe Andrews and her little sister Hannah were children, one of their favorite possessions was a hard-bound copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “The Secret Garden.” They even scribbled in the margins. But little girls grow up and outgrow girlish things. Eventually the book was donated to the local Oxfam charity shop. Twenty-five years later, Zoe was browsing through books in the second-hand store at The Museum of English Rural Life in Reading, England. She came across a “The Secret Garden.” “As I held it, I just felt like it was my old copy,” Zoe says. “It’s hard to explain—and probably sounds a bit naff—but it just did.” Inside was her own handwriting, including Hannah’s name. “It’s a very bizarre feeling to find something you loved as a child and to think of its journey. How many other children owned and read that book? Did they wonder who Hannah was?” Zoe bought it, of course, for fifty pence.