This rendition of the beloved book "The Secret Garden" is a wonderful production that is sure to keep you glued to your stereo. I read this book as a child a few times and watched the Hallmark version of the movie, but I always favor the imagination over the cinematic portrayals of characters in books who become your friends.
My daughter is six and received this for Christmas. I didn't know if she was ready for the involved plot of "The Secret Garden", but I thought we'd try the audio version anyway. She fell in love with it and had to listen to it all in one sitting-it's over an hour long-and as soon as she finished it she wanted to begin it all over again. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it as well, and my 3 year old followed along too. We then read the book and found the book to be a bit lengthier and wordy. The abridged version of the audio is great. The accents are marvelous and there is much "scope for the imagination!"

Over the years, I have collected several versions of Secret Garden from various internet bookstores. This production, beautifully done by Focus on Family, is by far the best version I have ever heard. The narrator, using first person in her narration, effectively weaves in the story smoothly. And the original story and sequences of story are well kept so that it can be easily followed with the text. Another good thing about this cd is in its cover. The audio actors and actresses are properly introduced and thus given its listeners the first hand knowledge about who is who on this wonderful sound production. Keep up the good works! Focus on Family

Did you ever wonder how the food Mary and Collin ate tasted? This book answers that question with over 40 recipes and lots of fun facts straight from the Victorian age. Try Mulligatawny soup from India, Tattie Broth like Dickon would have eaten, and enjoy an authentic English tea. These recipes are not only fun to make, but they taste good too! You will love this book!

The book is set in the 19th century, but the heroine, Bettina Vanderpoel of the filthy rich New York Vanderpoels, is no shrinking violet. That role is left to her older sister, sweet and not overly bright Rosalie. The story starts out with Rosalie being courted by and married to Sir Nigel Anstruthers, an impoverished English aristocrat on the make for a rich wife. Although she is only eight at the time, Betty hates Sir Nigel. Her instincts are on the money. Sir Nigel is a rotter, a blackguard, a cad, and a bounder. He is utterly infuriated that he did not automatically gain control of Rosalie's money when he married her. He and his equally appalling mother start a loathsome campaign of emotional abuse that gentle Rosalie is not equal to. Luckily, by chapter five it is 12 years later and Bettina has grown into a fine, strong-minded woman who has all the business sense that made the Vanderpoel fortune. The rest of the book tells us how she rescues her sister, her nephew, and the Anstruthers estate from Sir Nigel. The hero of the book is another impoverished aristocrat, but cut from genuinely noble cloth, even if most of his ancestors were of the Sir Nigel type.
Before the book is over, Bettina will be trapped, injured, and at the mercy of Sir Nigel, who has Perfectly Awful plans for the lovely lady. Will Bettina wring her hands helplessly and beg?
Don't be silly. Read and see how love, virtue, and justice triumph and Sir Nigel gets his.

This is an excellent book on the Spanish Civil War. The author is impartial to a fault. The outlines of the crisis of leadership of the Spanish revolution can be clearly be seen. The Stalinists following the direction of the Comintern opted for the chessboard of international relations rather than the shopfloor. The mass revolutionary movement looked to the anarchists for leadership but the CNT and FAI failed to step up to the plate until too late.
The detail in this book is impeccable, Stalins gold buttons? Inca gold. Every last bit of it that Spain stole was in turn stolen by the Russians. Anarchists diging disinterring the remains of priests and nuns and dancing with them. etc. It has been a while since I read it but I cannot give a stronger reccommendation to someone wishing to get a complete overview of the events of the Spanish revolution and civil war.

I've read this book several years ago and reread and reread it - it still never fails to amaze me. My copy is so stained-yellow now and smelled old so I am hoping to find a new one... The book will be very much worth the reading.

This is an awesome book. I am 15 and have read EVERY Survivor book. This book is NOT about the television show. Yes, it is endorsed by the television series and all but it is a life saving book. This is similar to the Boy Scout Handbook but with a Survivor twist. Mark Burnett ONLY wrote the introduction, he did not write the WHOLE book. Another thing that this has is illustrations of what you need to do to survive. This is a great book if you are planning on camping any time soon because something could go wrong and at your fingertips you have ALL the resources you need to survive. I totally recommend this if you camp. But if you are a couch potato and don't plan on leaving any time soon you really don't need this book. Unless you are going to choke on a potatoe chip, then you can read the section on Choking and the Heimlich. I know I didn't spell that right. But this book is a great edition to the survivor fans library. Buy It!

This is one of Burnett's lesser known novels but highly worth the read. Young Tembarom suddenly comes into a large inheritence and a large estate in Great Britian. His American way of life comes into a sharp contrast and he keeps his chin up the entire time. His love of his life who he met before coming into money refuses to have him unless he stays one year among the posh and still wants her. The deal is he can't see her and must surround himself with beautiful higher class women (with funny results). Old friends are found and new friends made and a ten year old mystery is solved by Tembarom. This is a typical Horatio Alger style book with a woman's touch and far older characters that you usually associate with what we see as a children's author. Very turn of the last century style of writing but highly enjoyable.

I had not realized until this year how much we are living in an age after Archilochus. The philologists of Germany at the time of Nietzsche's education had such exalted views of Archilochus that one of their experts, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff in a reply to Nietzsche's first book, THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY OUT OF THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC, complained, "As unbelievable as it might sound, Mr. N. has the audacity to compare Archilochan poetry with folk songs . . ." FUTURE PHILOLOGY! A REPLY TO THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY BY FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, English translation in "New Nietzsche Studies," Volume 4:1/2 Summer/Fall 2000, page 10. Further research by me indicated that the footnote on page 11 of that journal, which indicated that when his girlfriend's father "refused to grant her hand in marriage to Archilochus, he retaliated with such venomous satires that it is said that both the father and daughter hung themselves," might understate the number of people who hung themselves. This book helps translate the popularity of Archilochus into modern English for today's scholars, with a good bit of attention for the few other poets who retain enduring interest for real folksingers and their fans. Please love these people in spite of their faults, and try to appreciate the soundtracks if you ever go to movies, which continue to base plots on the themes covered in this book.

I feel that the boog was wonderful. I laughed, I cried, and I smiled not knowing what was going out. I loved the book more then a pugy child likes his/her cake!