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The Secret Garden
- (A Puffin Book)
- Narrated by: Indira Varma
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Categories: Children's Audiobooks, Literature & Fiction
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Summary
Penguin presents the unabridged audiobook edition of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
'I've stolen a garden,' she said very fast. 'It isn't mine. It isn't anybody's. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don't know.'
After losing her parents, young Mary Lennox is sent from India to live in her uncle's gloomy mansion on the wild English moors. She is lonely and has no one to play with, but one day she learns of a secret garden somewhere in the grounds that no one is allowed to enter. Then Mary uncovers an old key in a flowerbed - and a gust of magic leads her to the hidden door. Slowly she turns the key and enters a world she could never have imagined.
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What listeners say about The Secret Garden
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Mr Gareth C Rees
- 05-04-18
Pony101
It is great and exiting and the person who is reading it has great expression for different voices of people
4 people found this helpful
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- Angela KTM
- 15-08-19
Step into another world
One of my favourite childhood stories, and I try to re- read it often. As the book says, it fills my head with Agreeable things. Wonderful reading, acting, character voices.
1 person found this helpful
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- Daksina
- 19-12-18
Narrated perfectly
Indira Varma has fine a fantastic job narrating this book. Her Yorkshire accent is just perfect!
1 person found this helpful
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- SjC
- 22-02-21
A classic story, beautify told.
I loved this story when i was a child (a long time ago) and this was the first time i revisited it since then, i had forgotten how unlikable Mary and Colin are in the beginning.
What can i say It's a classic story, beautify told.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-11-20
Fabulous
A classic story made better by the wonderful narrator. Excellent different voices for the characters.
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- Danielcelloedwards
- 05-07-20
Brilliant performance of a classic
An outstanding performance from Indira Varma. This book has been criticised for its depiction of colonialism, but I think the narration makes it really clear that we're it's not something to be revelled in. At the start of the book, Mary is not a likeable character, and we're clearly not meant to sympathise with the horrible way that she treats her Indian caregivers. Also, I have read this book several times, but this performance really made me fall in love with Dickon. He's like a male version of Anne of Green Gables. Just the most lovely boy, who has a keen sense of wonder and kindness - nothing is too small for him to notice and appreciate. I think Indira Varma's brilliant Yorkshire accent really brought this character to life for me in a way that I hadn't previously noticed. Overall, a really excellent audiobook.
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- DoctorMummy
- 23-07-18
wonderful classic story
Yorkshire therapy! We thought this was a great story. wonderful to to listen as an adult
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- Saz
- 29-04-18
Lovely story
This book is so well written and read, it's very hard to put down. recommend.
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- Amazon Customer
- 26-04-18
Wonderful
What a wonderful story, I couldn't stop listening to it. I loved the way it described nature.
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- Anonymous User
- 23-02-19
Warning: May contain casual racism!
I've found this really hard to rate as the story is a classic and the reader excellent. However, a few chapters in and I was shocked to hear statements about "blacks" as compared to "civilized whites". I understand that the novel may be asking us to reflect on this attitude but my seven year old might not have that sophistication of thinking. There is a lot more casual racism that I do not want my child hearing so we have stopped listening. I wish I had been aware of this content beforehand!
4 people found this helpful
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- Roya McCauley
- 06-09-18
Superb!! Simply Superb!!
This narration is such a joy to listen to. The performance is magnificent and Magical, if I may be so bold. Full of life and on more than one occasion brought tears to my eyes as I listened. My deepest appreciation to this great narrator. She did a wonderful job!!
8 people found this helpful
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- Mom of 3
- 28-03-19
Amazing Reader
I have loved this book since I was young, so I've always been excited for the day when my kids would be old enough to enjoy it for themselves. While we do our own read alouds, we've been enjoying audiobooks more and more - and I've learned that the reader/narrator can make or break a story! THIS READER IS AMAZING! Her voices, the various accents, the emotions expressed... it brought this great story to life and my kids absolutely adored it. So did I! I highly recommend this version!
5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-01-19
Fantastic Reader!
This narrator nailed the Yorkshire accent, paused at just the right moments, and did a beautiful job of capturing the personalities of each character. My daughter needed to read the book for an assignment over Christmas break, and listening to it felt like a treat. I highly recommend this performance.
3 people found this helpful
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- Viva
- 18-07-19
Lush, sublime narration
I can’t attest to quality of the accents, but I enjoyed every bit of this emotionally rich and varied narration. Ms Varma’s eloquent and attractive telling makes it automatically one of my all-time favorites. She sings the little songs and consistently manages many characters with expert ease. I’m awed. And grateful- I feel I got a full experience.
2 people found this helpful
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- SB & TC Robin
- 16-11-20
Lovely
Listened with my 5 year old daughter before letting her watch the 1993 movie. It was perfect. The accents were stylized enough to give the idea, but clear enough even she could understand the broad Yorkshire.
1 person found this helpful
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- Kelli
- 27-10-20
What a gem!
It’s getting hard to find an audiobook that hasn’t drowned out the words by trying to add all sorts of background noise or that has been overly dramatized. Indira Varma did a wonderful job and I will look for her in other titles. I couldn’t press pause on this little gem.
Anyone suffering from quarantine blues or depression I general would greatly benefit from this tale.
It was written at the height of English imperialism so needless to say there is racism and classism. However, it’s a good way to look our history square in the face to see how far we have left to go in our fight against racism.
1 person found this helpful
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- Corinne Hennessy
- 26-10-20
Most Marvelous
Brimming with hope and healing.
Forget the movie
Forget the remake of the movie.
This is a book that would be well read after dinner when all are ready for bed Or anytime. I like books when I listen to the Audio. It warmed my heart.
1 person found this helpful
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- kanga2012
- 01-08-20
Returning to my childhood
Listening to The Secret Garden was a step back in time. There is so much wisdom and truth in this gentle story which as an adult, reached into my heart and touched my soul. To listen to this story again with the delightful narration of Indira Varma, provided soothing respite from the anxiety of today’s world. Even if you read this as a child, let yourself listen to it now as an adult. You will fall in love with this tender story once again.
1 person found this helpful
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- Emilia
- 14-07-20
phenomenal voice acting
Such a pleasure to hear this story again after so many years and this time read with such talent. Brought everything so vividly to life.
1 person found this helpful
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- AF
- 15-11-18
This is such a great, classic story!
The story is just as wonderful as I remember when my mom read it to me as a child. I got so much more out of it though listening to it now, as an adult. I highly recommend it for children and grown ups alike. The story is so well crafted and delivers a great message. The narrator was simply brilliant as well and I'll miss hearing her voice.
1 person found this helpful