Books : Tom's Midnight Garden

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Rating:

- Let your imagination soar into your own midnight garden
Tom, quarantined from his brother's measles and sent off to relatives, faces several weeks in a house converted into flats with no other kids, no playground and nothing at all for a boy of his age to do. A grandfather clock that tells the correct time but clangs different hours stands in the hallway of the house. One night, when the clock chimes a mysterious thirteenth hour, Tom goes down to investigate.

What he finds is an entirely different house with rich decorations and carpeting. And, behind the back door that in the daytime gives out to an alley, is his fondest wish - a vast garden to play in and a friend with whom to explore every tree and hedge and even the meadow and river beyond.

Time is the great mystery in this book. For Tom only 24 hours may have gone by since his last visit but seasons have passed in the garden. As for his friend, a girl named Hatty, sometimes she appears younger than he is and sometimes, she is almost an adult. And while he may spend a whole day in the garden, the grandfather clock shows that he only spent a few minutes out the door.

As with all good stories, the reader is not only immersed in the mystery and the enjoyment while reading, her imagination is stirred. And who knows what kind of concoction boils up when that happens? Oh to find one's own secret garden and a good friend behind a seemingly mundane door!

This book is not only for children but for adults as well. I would translate Tom's adventures to Zoe's Mid-afternoon Caribbean Cabana in which a cubicle-dwelling computer programmer enters a supplies closet in that hazy time between lunch and tea and finds a white sand beach, a hammock, a chick-lit novel and a cold, umbrella-decorated cocktail.

Rating:

- The kind of book all authors want to write
What an amazing and haunting story! I originally read this in jr. high when I was feeling rather misunderstood and lonely. Children's literature has long lost its ability to make its fantasy infusions subtle and part of the story--without declaring the book high fantasy. This is part of that world of stories. Tom is a character at a remarkable level few characters reach; he is someone to whom kids can relate as he makes friends, hopes for an eternal childhood, and observes the process of growing up. Absolutely incredible.

Rating:

- Still great 20 years later
I fondly remember this book from school years, and happily purchased another copy again this year. And at 35, I enjoyed it just as much! The story is beautifully written, and as a reader I feel privileged to share the story from Tom's point of view, and feel that I'm there in the book with Tom as I read. It's easy to visualise the story as it progresses. The characters are lively and the emotions change with the story, a great read.

Rating:

- This is a book you never forget
Like all others who read the book as a child, I like them was enchanted by this beautifully written book. I read it (shool library) when I was about 11 and I have been looking for it the next forty years...
It took the Internet and Google to give me another chance at reading the story I cherished for a lifetime.

Extraordinary...

Rating:

- Never surpassed.
I first chanced upon this book as a seven year old. I had read many books before but this one truly opened my mind to the wondrous joy of reading.

Nearly thirty years later I have not yet found a book to surpass it. Re-reading as an adult I still see why its multi-layered, perfectly self-consistent meanings entranced me.

The apparent wish-fulfilment of the story is really only the surface. Around the dream garden and its marvels flow deeper themes: of growing apart and loss of childhood, time as an enemy, and unfathomable yearning. Which is not to say that this is an overwhelmingly sad book, though it is certainly one in which childhood wishes are portrayed as tempered for the first time. Even the sadness can be beautiful because it is part of life; and the book shows that the tyranny of time can be overcome with mind.

I here have the privilege of urging parents to allow their children to discover the joys of literature through this book. It would be delightful to know that children of today could appreciate it too.

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