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    When Marnie Was There
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    When Marnie Was There
    Unavailable
    When Marnie Was There
    Audiobook6 hours

    When Marnie Was There

    Written by Joan G. Robinson

    Narrated by Susan Duerden

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    When Marnie Was There is a gripping ghost story telling of Anna's strange encounter and friendship with a shadowy girl called Marnie among the wild and watery sand dunes of the Norfolk countryside. Is Marnie real? Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal when first published in 1967, this is a classic tale with truths to tell about friendship, loneliness and family.

    One of Hayao Miyazaki's top 50 favorite books for children, When Marnie Was There, is coming to the big screen with an animated adaptation by his film company, Studio Ghibli, creators of Oscar-winning Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle and Arietty, based on Carnegie-winning novel, The Borrowers. This classic ghost story comes back into print to celebrate the film's release, bringing Anna's encounters with Marnie to a new generation of readers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateDec 16, 2014
    ISBN9780553552607
    Author

    Joan G. Robinson

    The second of four children of barrister parents, Joan Robinson spent her early childhood in Hampstead Garden Suburb. She went to seven schools, but passed no exams. Having always wanted to be an illustrator, she began with fourteen books for small children, and later moved on to older children’s fiction. She is internationally renowned for her TEDDY ROBINSON books.

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    Reviews for When Marnie Was There

    4.5/5

    50 ratings4 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I can't remember why I decided to re-read this. Someone must have mentioned it, and brought it to my mind. It's a book of two halves: the Marnie bits are haunting and memorable, but when Anna gets more-or-less adopted by a family of wannabe Swallows and Amazons I rather lost interest. Those people were just too hearty for me.
    • 4/5
      A gentle and charming ghost story set on the North Norfolk coast.Anna is a lonely foster child, who feels very 'outside' the warm relationships of others. While convalescing on the Norfolk coast, she meets Marnie, also lonely and excluded, and the two become firm friends. There is a lovely sense of place with the marshes and the dunes. The explanations at the end come very thick and fast compared to the gentle pace of the rest of the book, and while they are a bit coincidental, they are satisfying. I think I will not walk down the staithe again without imagining Marnie, pale at the window!
    • 5/5
      Remarkable story.
    • 5/5
      I didn't grow up with a great love of reading like many of my contemporary readers and writers. I read for fun as a child, but not voraciously. The books I read were not the classic adventures you may have read. Mostly, I read Garfield and Choose Your Own Adventure. I did read one or two Judy Blumes, but that was as close as I got to “good literature” until I was much older.Once I had children, my curiosity about children's literature grew. Had I missed much? I began to explore some of the titles I'd heard others rave about, some old and some new. Frankly, I wasn't impressed. Though the stories were good, every one was guilty of being a story and little more. The authors of children's tales clearly knew nothing about creating round characters who develop or using language to further the plot; perhaps they knew and just refused to utilize them. Perhaps they were out there and I just couldn't find them. Either way, book after book, I was disappointed with the action-begets-conflict-leading-to-more-action plot. Was I missing something, some basic trait in myself that made deficient my understanding of a good story?When I first saw the trailer for Studio Ghibli's newest film, When Marnie Was There, I knew I'd found our newest family read. Prior to this, I'd never heard of the title or its author, Joan G. Robinson. The trailer looked fantastic, however, and I thought it would be fun to read the book to the kiddos before we watched the movie. Yet I worried this children's story would be just like the rest.When Marnie Was There is such a fantastic read. For some children, it may be much too slow. It's true, not much happens, but it is an enchanting tale. This is the story of a girl, Anna, who is a bit of an outcast and who finds a friend in an unexpected place. There are some strange happenings and some drama, but largely, it's about Anna and her struggles. But man, oh man, is this novel wonderfully paced and charactered. Robinson fantastically doled out the mystery surrounding Anna's friend, Marnie, at just the right speed to keep things interesting without giving much away. At the end of every chapter or two, we as a family would theorize what was going on. No other book we'd read together had prompted so many questions.Once the truth of the story draws near, it hits hard. I was quite choked up. I had to step away from my reading of the text for a few minutes to compose myself. That is a power I never would've expected from a children's novel.I don't know how I would've felt about this novel as a child. Maybe it would've bored me. Maybe it would've resonated with me then as it does now. My own children seemed to enjoy it thoroughly. What I do know, or am beginning to realize, is that it is all so incredibly subjective: tastes, feelings, responses. In When Marnie Was There, Anna is on the outside, looking in, wondering how to fit in, all the while oblivious to the connections that surround her. Likewise, it may be that I was looking for identity in the wrong place. It's okay that others love the books they love—perhaps what others need is a story, a purpose, a sense of action—while what I need is a sense of identity and connection. Stories resonate with each of us differently. That said, I personally loved When Marnie Was There. I love it so much that someday, I may read it again... perhaps to my grandchildren.