Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess is just as delicious now as it was when I first read it as a child. The story, about a Victorian school girl who is orphaned and forced into a life of servitude, is rife with the trials and heartache common to dreary, early 1900s London, yet it’s also a magical testimony to the importance of kindness, friendship, imagination and, above all, the power of storytelling. Even while the world as Sara knows it is crumbling around her, she has an infectious optimism that shows how your perspective in life can alter your reality.

It is worth noting that this book was written in 1905, and the story is not without its faults (though I don’t offer that as an excuse, merely as context). Some of the views and language used to describe race and class is dated and inappropriate. However, there is still, I believe, a place for this sweet story on friendship, kindness and good triumphing over evil, even today, 117 years on. For ages 9+.

Celeste Deliyiannis is from Readings emporium