When Marnie Was There -

Joan G. Robinson

HarperCollins

2002

288 páginas

9h 36m

ISBN-13: 9780007104772

Anna lives with foster parents, a misfit with no friends, always on the outside of things. Then she is sent to Norfolk to stay with old Mr and Mrs Pegg, where she runs wild on the sand dunes and around the water. There is a house, the Marsh House, which she feels she recognises - and she soon meets a strange little girl called Marnie, who becomes Anna's first ever friend. Then one day, Marnie vanishes. A new family, the Lindsays, move into the Marsh House. Having learnt so much from Marnie about friendship, Anna makes firm friends with the Lindsays - and learns some strange truths about Marnie, who was not all she seemed...

Resenhas (16)

5 (Perfeito)

Remarkable

The story begins with Anna being sent away to Norfolk. Her doctor had said it would make her feel better — to take some fresh air, since she had had asthma. Therefore we don't know anything about her background or what led her to get sick, except she lives with her auntie — Mrs Preston — and will spend her holiday with the Peggs.

The Peggs are very kind, so is everyone around Anna. Even though, Anna feels out of place. She believes there is an invisible magic circle where some are "inside", and she's "outside".

She insists in put on her ordinary face to not be noticed, and everyone seems to think she is "not even trying". Anna neither feel talking with any other children nor making any friend. She likes doing nothing better than anything.

At Mrs Pegg's cottage, she settles down in her new bedroom. "There was a picture over the bed, a framed sampler in red and blue cross-stitch, with the words Hold fast that which is Good embroidered over a blue anchor." She didn't understand it, but occasionally she will.

Anyway, Anna spends her days near the creek that comes across The Marsh House — which catches her attention at the first sight. It seems no one lives there, though. So she enjoys her loneliness lying in a sandy hollow, listening to the seabirds that sound like "pity me".

It goes on until the day she meets Marnie — a girl who lives at The Marsh House. As they get to know each other, they become best friends. And a great love grows up.

I don't want to spoil the story, but if you had seen the movie that Studio Ghibli made based on this book, you will understand how angry I got because of the plot twist. However, in this book I couldn't feel the same way I did with the movie, because I felt all Anna's feelings. I went through everything she had gone, and when she got over it, I did too.

Clever writing and has deep meanings, I'd strongly recommend this book for everyone who feels lonely.

"It was raining harder now and she was beginning to get wet, but it did not matter. She was warm inside. She turned and began running back along the dyke, thinking how strange it was – about being ‘inside’ or ‘outside’. It was nothing to do with there being other people, or whether you were ‘an only’, or one of a large family – Scilla, and even Andrew, felt outside sometimes; she knew that now – it was something to do with how you were feeling inside yourself."