false 61676757 832116 543086 0064404455 9780064404457 40 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175653706m/543086.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/543086.Tom_s_Midnight_Garden 3.93 368 Tom is furious. His brother, Peter, has measles, so now Tom is being shipped off to stay with Aunt Gwen and Uncle Alan in their boring old apartment. There'll be nothing to do there and no one to play with. Tom just counts the days till he can return home to Peter.Then one night the landlady's antique grandfather clock strikes thirteen times leading Tom to a wonderful, magical discovery and marking the beginning of a secret that's almost too amazing to be true. But it is true, and in the new world that Tom discovers is a special friend named Hatty and more than a summer's worth of adventure for both of them. Now Tom wishes he could stay with his relativesand Hatty -- forever...

]]> 4953 3.92 552 72 4 0 false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 15:52:14 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 10:46:31 -0700 2009 Philippa Pearce brings the past alive by turning it into the present in this magical time-shift fantasy about a young boy named Tom Long.

Tom is placed in quarantine for measles and is sent to live with his childless aunt and uncle for a few weeks. They live in an apartment which is part of an old converted house. A grandfather clock stands in the communal hallway of the large house and old Mrs. Bartholomew, the landlady, comes down from her top floor apartment to wind the clock each week. Tom is warned that it is better for children to remain unseen when Mrs. Bartholomew makes her weekly trek.

The clock mysteriously strikes thirteen one night, and sleepless Tom creeps through the dark to investigate. The darkness is too thick for him to examine the clock face for a thirteenth hour, so he opens the outside door to let moonlight wash into the hallway. He is surprised to find that it is daylight outside! With all of this light Tom can see that the hallway is transformed by Victorian furnishings and the small paved area outside the door has become a large and lush garden, a veritable Eden. No longer does the smell of hot asphalt permeate the air, but instead the perfume of flowers and green growing things circulates on the summer breeze. Tom steps into the garden ... and into the past.

Tom returns nightly to this magical garden where he has befriended a girl named Hatty. Time behaves very oddly with subsequent visits to the garden. Tom never knows if Hatty will be younger or older than when he saw her last and this creates questions. Which one of them is real and which one the ghost? Which one lives in the "real" world? Time has drawn them together, but Time has also placed a barrier between them. Or has it?

Tom's Midnight Garden is about loneliness and friendship and the magic of childhood. It is the story of the loss of Eden into a fuller understanding that goes beyond childish interests. In the final, and very touching, scene the mystery of Hatty and the garden is solved and we learn that time need not separate us. Generational barriers need not exist. "Then and Now.... Time No Longer."

Tom's Midnight Garden is a beautiful and satisfying story. As a child, I would have LOVED this book with its combination of mystery, beautiful eeriness, magical setting and ending that just leaves you feeling good. I don't know how I missed it then, but I'm glad to have finally read it.]]>