Tom's Midnight Garden

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Oh! How do I express my gladness to have experienced this book? I can’t believe it’s from 1958. It could be a 1970s child, who feels his summer was forfeited by spending it with his apartment-dwelling Aunt. He loves his family’s yard and his Aunt only has trashcans on cement. With his brother ill, away he goes. His Aunt is keen to take him out but his Uncle is my least favourite type; debating whatever you utter. I love that Tom issues metaphysical challenges to him! Victorian Hatty lived in the house when it was still one big house, long before developers converted it into apartments. Hatty is lonely because there is nobody at the house for her to play with, or to do anything fun with at all. She seems to grow up very fast, far faster than Tom, but remains friends with him and seems to enjoy the magic of their meetings just as much as he does. on one level a first-rate mystery story. But it is also an effective evocation of a boy's life in an East Anglican village. Two boys, Adam and David, are convincingly drawn, and their treasure hunt is exciting, frustrating, and rewarding. The pervasive presence of the river adds much to the mood of the book, and the Say is as much a character as a vividly described setting of the narrative.

There is a time-travel aspect to the storyline, but the 1950s setting of Tom will feel nearly as 'historical' to contemporary readers as the 1890s setting of Hatty. It does capture something very universal, though, about children's play, about imagination, about growing up, and about the mysteries of time. OK, let's get the preliminaries out of the way first. This is very much a period piece - and, for better or worse, and I can't imagine my (now grown) kids having got through this ... or, for that matter, sitting through the first few chapters of the book, even if someone was reading it to them. For kids who grew up with (or, even more so, traveled with) video games (and video game consoles) and DVD players (or VCR's) and, yes, the Internet, well, ... it's a bridge too far. And, sure, my kids are (and were) very much urban/suburbanites ... so the fascination and satisfaction with (or interest in) a garden ... just doesn't resonate .... But, ultimately, that's just the (by today's standards, painfully slow) opening gambit. Tom's Midnight Garden is a children's fantasy novel by English author Philippa Pearce. It was first published in 1958 by Oxford University Press with illustrations by Susan Einzig. The story is about a twelve-year-old Tom who, while staying with his aunt and uncle, slips out at midnight and discovers a magical, mysterious Victorian garden where he befriends a young girl named Hatty. The novel has been reissued in print many times and also adapted for radio, television, cinema, and the stage. Pearce's short story collections, The Elm Street Lot and What the Neighbors Did, are realistic accounts of everyday events in the lives of young people. In The Battle of Bubble and Squeak the members of a family argue about a pair of gerbils. The story examines family tensions as the pet gerbils change the lives of all concerned. He tries pushing hard against one of the solid wooden doors. Now, if he can't open it, Tom's going to try going through it! "At first, the body came through evenly from top to bottom. Then, the upper part seemed to stop, and the bottom part came through in its entirety, legs first. Then one arm came through, then another.

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Tom's Midnight Garden is a short but extremely satisfying novel. It is tightly plotted and populated with interesting and believable characters. When the book ended I was both happy to have enjoyed the book and sad to say goodbye to Tom and Hatty. Of course, I was partial to Hatty, having a Harriet of my own. But even without that personal connection, I would have loved the novel. One of the many reasons for its ultimate impact is that it has the most profoundly moving revelation last act that brings the whole journey to an emotional crescendo. I loved this book when I first read it. And I suppose I was a little bit like Tom, you know, always looking for adventures, easily bored. Tom had to keep this book a secret, I'm not sure if I could have done that. I really would have wanted to show off the garden to my friends.

Take (or find) some digital photos of different places in the moonlight. Compare these with photos of the same places in the day time. The garden is gone the following night. Tom stumbles on the rubbish-bins, calling Hatty’s name. Having heard Tom’s shouts, Mrs. Bartholomew calls Tom up to her flat. He learns that she is Hatty, and lately, she has frequently dreamed of her lonely childhood. Lonely himself, Tom crossed into her dreams. Like old friends, they embrace. The story was written in 1958. Can you find any references that describe what life was like at that time? How was it similar / different to today?

Working with friends, find all of the words and phrases used to describe the garden. Can you make a note of these and use some of them within your own writing? Find some of the flowers that are mentioned in the book and use these as inspiration for your own artwork. Tom struggles to sleep when he arrives at the house. Can you find out why sleep is important to people? Some symbolic contrast between the two settings is evident in the first shot of the bright and colourful Victorian garden against the dreary, dim and repressing post war home décor of Tom’s aunt and uncles. However, this symbolism is not consistent and at times seems to be altogether forgotten, our only reminders being a few panoramic shots of the garden and other landscapes sporadically interspersed, which feel almost an afterthought. Personally, I would have liked to have seen this contrast developed more as I think it would have subconsciously helped the audience to empathise more deeply with Tom’s distress at losing his portal to the garden at the end. Also, this is no Time Traveler's Wife, (a personal favorite), even though that was the book that kept popping into my mind as I read this. Obviously, it's a children's book; as noted above, it's (extremely) dated; I must admit, I didn't love the prose - by modern standards, it's heavy and stilted and ... not just British, but formal/stuffy to the point of distraction....