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This one escaped me as a child so it was lovely to read it now. Such an imaginative story with a really magical ending.
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Tom's Midnight Garden
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When his brother catches measles, Tom is sent away for the summer to stay with his uncle and aunt and is thoroughly fed up about it. What a boring summer it's going to be. But then, lying in bed one night, he hears the old grandfather clock in the hall strike the very strange hour of 13 o'clock. What can it mean? As Tom creeps downstairs and opens the door, he finds out...a magical garden, a new playmate, and the adventure of a lifetime.
238 pages, Paperback
First published December 31,1958
This edition
- Format
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238 pages, Paperback
- Published
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October 28, 1993 by Puffin Books
- ISBN
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9780140364545
- ASIN
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0140364544
- Language
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English
About the author
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Philippa Pearce OBE (1920-2006) was an English author of children's books. Her most famous work is the time slip fantasy novel Tom's Midnight Garden, which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, as the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. Pearce was four further times a commended runner-up for the Medal.
Pearce wrote over 30 books, including A Dog So Small (1962), Minnow on the Say, (1955), The Squirrel Wife (1971), The Battle of Bubble and Squeak (1978) and The Way To Sattin Shore (1983). The Shadow Cage and other tales of the supernatural (1977), Minnow on the Say, Bubble and Squeak, and Sattin Shore were all Carnegie Medal runners-up. The Battle of Bubble and Squeak inspired a two-part television adaptation in Channel 4's Talk, Write and Read series of educational programming.
The youngest of four children of a flour miller and corn merchant, Ernest Alexander Pearce, and his wife Gertrude Alice née Ramsden, Philippa Pearce was born in the village of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, and brought up there on the River Cam at the Mill House. Starting school late at the age of eight because of illness, she was educated at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, and went on to Girton College, Cambridge on a scholarship to read English and History there.
After gaining her degree, Pearce moved to London, where she found work as a civil servant. Later she wrote and produced schools' radio programmes for the BBC, where she remained for 13 years. She was a children's editor at the Oxford University Press from 1958 to 1960 and at the André Deutsch publishing firm from 1960 to 1967.
In 1951 Pearce spent a long period in hospital recovering from tuberculosis. She passed the time there thinking about a canoe trip she had taken many years before, which became the inspiration for her first book, Minnow on the Say, published in 1955 with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. It was a commended runner-up for the annual Carnegie Medal. It was adapted for television in Canada as a 1960 TV series with the original title, and for British television in 1972 as Treasure over the Water.
Pearce's second book was Tom's Midnight Garden, published in 1958. Its "midnight garden" was based directly on the garden of the Mill House where Pearce was raised. The novel inspired a film, a stage play and three TV versions. It won the annual Carnegie Medal and for the 70th anniversary celebration in 2007, a panel named it one of the top ten Medal-winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite. Tom's Midnight Garden finished second in the vote from that shortlist, between two books that were about 40 years younger.
Every September from 2008, the Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture at Homerton College, Cambridge celebrates "excellence in writing for children and to emphasize its continuing vital importance." The lecturers are children's literature authors, scholars or critics, and most of the lectures are published online.
Pearce wrote over 30 books, including A Dog So Small (1962), Minnow on the Say, (1955), The Squirrel Wife (1971), The Battle of Bubble and Squeak (1978) and The Way To Sattin Shore (1983). The Shadow Cage and other tales of the supernatural (1977), Minnow on the Say, Bubble and Squeak, and Sattin Shore were all Carnegie Medal runners-up. The Battle of Bubble and Squeak inspired a two-part television adaptation in Channel 4's Talk, Write and Read series of educational programming.
The youngest of four children of a flour miller and corn merchant, Ernest Alexander Pearce, and his wife Gertrude Alice née Ramsden, Philippa Pearce was born in the village of Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire, and brought up there on the River Cam at the Mill House. Starting school late at the age of eight because of illness, she was educated at the Perse School for Girls in Cambridge, and went on to Girton College, Cambridge on a scholarship to read English and History there.
After gaining her degree, Pearce moved to London, where she found work as a civil servant. Later she wrote and produced schools' radio programmes for the BBC, where she remained for 13 years. She was a children's editor at the Oxford University Press from 1958 to 1960 and at the André Deutsch publishing firm from 1960 to 1967.
In 1951 Pearce spent a long period in hospital recovering from tuberculosis. She passed the time there thinking about a canoe trip she had taken many years before, which became the inspiration for her first book, Minnow on the Say, published in 1955 with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. It was a commended runner-up for the annual Carnegie Medal. It was adapted for television in Canada as a 1960 TV series with the original title, and for British television in 1972 as Treasure over the Water.
Pearce's second book was Tom's Midnight Garden, published in 1958. Its "midnight garden" was based directly on the garden of the Mill House where Pearce was raised. The novel inspired a film, a stage play and three TV versions. It won the annual Carnegie Medal and for the 70th anniversary celebration in 2007, a panel named it one of the top ten Medal-winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation's favourite. Tom's Midnight Garden finished second in the vote from that shortlist, between two books that were about 40 years younger.
Every September from 2008, the Philippa Pearce Memorial Lecture at Homerton College, Cambridge celebrates "excellence in writing for children and to emphasize its continuing vital importance." The lecturers are children's literature authors, scholars or critics, and most of the lectures are published online.
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So I have recently discovered a new podcast called Mindful Moments by David Larbi and he's such a gem of a human - anyway, in one of his episodes he talks about how every month he aims to read 1x fiction book, 1x non-fic, and 1x book he would've loved or did love as a child; and this last one is sort of in an attempt to reignite that sense of excitement and childish glee that we used to get from reading, the sensation of hiding under the duvet with a torch and trying to cram in another chapter after lights out - and I absolutely loved this idea. So I looked on my shelves and found this book leftover from my children's literature module at uni and thought it would be a great place to start.
Unfortunately, I didn't love it - the pacing was really slow and I think it does just feel a little bit dated, it's sort of hard to place it in time, due to the time-travelling elements, but it does feel very post-war, and I think it's written in that specific 'keep calm and carry on' way, which does feel a bit superficial, there's not a lot of emotional depth to the characters (and I don't think this is due to it being for children, but more so due to the time period.) The ending was incredibly sweet though!
A bit of a miss for my first nostalgia read, but I will keep going with it as I still am very much intrigued by what I have to learn and enjoy from children's books as an adult.
Unfortunately, I didn't love it - the pacing was really slow and I think it does just feel a little bit dated, it's sort of hard to place it in time, due to the time-travelling elements, but it does feel very post-war, and I think it's written in that specific 'keep calm and carry on' way, which does feel a bit superficial, there's not a lot of emotional depth to the characters (and I don't think this is due to it being for children, but more so due to the time period.) The ending was incredibly sweet though!
A bit of a miss for my first nostalgia read, but I will keep going with it as I still am very much intrigued by what I have to learn and enjoy from children's books as an adult.
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Very good book. If you like fantasy, I recommend it for you.
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I just could not get into this book at all. The language was strange and overly complex which detracted from the novel.
It was too slow to actually get to the mystery of the garden. Maybe it was magical but the language certainly didn't reflect it. It felt like a copy of the secret garden, but worse. And Tom barely had any character- I would like to have understood more about his personality; was he always a curious child? Where was his family? Who were his friends? Etc etc.
Also, there were hardly any other characters apart from him. Where was everyone else? I understand that it's mainly set at night but even so, it needed more to make it more interesting. Just my opinion.
It was too slow to actually get to the mystery of the garden. Maybe it was magical but the language certainly didn't reflect it. It felt like a copy of the secret garden, but worse. And Tom barely had any character- I would like to have understood more about his personality; was he always a curious child? Where was his family? Who were his friends? Etc etc.
Also, there were hardly any other characters apart from him. Where was everyone else? I understand that it's mainly set at night but even so, it needed more to make it more interesting. Just my opinion.
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When I think about this book, I get the same sort of feeling as Tom at the beginning of the story -- a little stifled, restless, too full of food. It's quite odd! Anyway, that somewhat colours my memories of this book, making it a bit less wondrous than perhaps it should be. It's a sweet story, ultimately, about mutual loneliness and need of companionship reaching right across time and bringing too lonely children together. It never gets too saccharine, though -- perhaps just slightly, at the end, but that's a nice touch for the very end.
Despite the male protagonist, it isn't only a boy's story -- his friend is a young girl, Hatty, who is equally capable of climbing trees and making a bow and arrows... Although, of course, she does have to be taught by Tom.
The thing that I found myself wondering, more than anything, reading it now, is why Abel can see Tom. There doesn't seem to be any answer in the story.
Despite the male protagonist, it isn't only a boy's story -- his friend is a young girl, Hatty, who is equally capable of climbing trees and making a bow and arrows... Although, of course, she does have to be taught by Tom.
The thing that I found myself wondering, more than anything, reading it now, is why Abel can see Tom. There doesn't seem to be any answer in the story.
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I remember avidly watching the Children's BBC adaptation of TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN when I was around Tom's age myself - this would have been in 1990 or so. I absolutely loved the series, but to my chagrin I never read the book on which it was based - until now.
I'd always assumed that this was a modern book but on checking the details I found it was written in 1958 - this explains how Pearce has a natural way with words and how she recaptures the same magic of childhood as Enid Blyton did. In fact, as time goes on, I think readers will realise more and more that this is a true classic of the period.
TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN is one of those spooky, magical stories that creeped me out as a kid but now have me spellbound to the page. The idea of the grandfather clock that strikes 13 is fine in itself, but the moonlit garden is a real work of art, a thing of beauty not unlike in the classic story, THE SECRET GARDEN. Certainly the best book about a garden that I've ever read.
I enjoyed the way that Pearce keeps interpretations open, not getting too held up in the technicalities of time travel. Is this sci fi? Is it a ghost story? It's open enough for the reader to make his or her own judgement, which I thought was a very neat aspect of the story.
The writing is superbly evocative and the characters quite wonderful. In the end, this is a love story - not only between Tom and Hatty, but between the author and childhood. The way the book deals with the lost innocence of childhood and the inevitably of adulthood absolutely broke my heart and I ended up sobbing my heart out as I read through the final pages.
This is a truly heartwarming tale that's now my favourite children's book. It blows the soulless HARRY POTTER completely out of the water.
I'd always assumed that this was a modern book but on checking the details I found it was written in 1958 - this explains how Pearce has a natural way with words and how she recaptures the same magic of childhood as Enid Blyton did. In fact, as time goes on, I think readers will realise more and more that this is a true classic of the period.
TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN is one of those spooky, magical stories that creeped me out as a kid but now have me spellbound to the page. The idea of the grandfather clock that strikes 13 is fine in itself, but the moonlit garden is a real work of art, a thing of beauty not unlike in the classic story, THE SECRET GARDEN. Certainly the best book about a garden that I've ever read.
I enjoyed the way that Pearce keeps interpretations open, not getting too held up in the technicalities of time travel. Is this sci fi? Is it a ghost story? It's open enough for the reader to make his or her own judgement, which I thought was a very neat aspect of the story.
The writing is superbly evocative and the characters quite wonderful. In the end, this is a love story - not only between Tom and Hatty, but between the author and childhood. The way the book deals with the lost innocence of childhood and the inevitably of adulthood absolutely broke my heart and I ended up sobbing my heart out as I read through the final pages.
This is a truly heartwarming tale that's now my favourite children's book. It blows the soulless HARRY POTTER completely out of the water.
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3.5 stars. Enjoyable magical fun! Somewhat on the slower paced side however.
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*3,85
Sublime ending.
Sublime ending.
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