'It's just a saying, Tom- "to put the clock back". It means, to have the Past again, and no one can have that. Time isn't like that.'

'She went right into the bedroom and stood over him, looking down at him. He must have been dreaming of something, for the expression on his face changed a little, even in sleep. Once he smiled, and then sighed; and once such a far-away look came into his face that his mother bent over him in an impulse to wake him and recall him to her. She restrained herself, and left him'.

Tom Long is a young boy who is sent to stay with his Aunt and Uncle for a Summer when his brother becomes ill. There isn't much for Tom to do, but one night when the big old Grandfather clock in the hall strikes Thirteen, Tom goes to investigate. He opens a door to shine some moonlight on the clock........and finds a wonderful garden where there should only be rubbish bins and concrete.

Written in 1958, this was a childhood favourite of mine. I never owned a copy, but I borrowed it from the library repeatedly. I saw it in a bookshop recently and had to get it - I was worried that it wouldn't have the same magic after so long but I needn't have worried, it was just as magical, wonderful, bittersweet, and engaging as it was when I was a child.

A beautiful, gorgeous book, suitable for all ages.

I think it's really good. It's rather an exciting book which wants you to move on from the blurb, to the 1st page. Tom gets taken from his home because Peter, his brother, has the measles. He stays at his Uncle's.
He hates being sent away to his Uncle and Aunt's, but he does have a wonderful surprise... He than makes a great plan, before writing letters home with love...
His mysterious findings are still not found out or figured. As still a mystery, Tom gets frustrated... Weird... he can (he finded out) can go through a locked green-house door although it's not a nice feeling, so he won't and doesn't do it again from a big decision.

Eis o livro que tinha assinalado nos "to read", aquando da leitura da "Bibliotecária". Literatura Inglesa que nos reporta à época Vitoriana e, principalmente, a uma idade em que todos sonhamos com passagens secretas, locais mágicos e viagens no tempo.

O que faria se, ao passar uns dias em casa dos avos ou daquela tia mais idosa, notasse que o relógio de parede não se tinha detido nas doze badaladas, anunciando uma 13a hora...???!!

Eis o mote para toda a história deste livro encantador.

I read this book 10 years ago, and it still haunts me.

Tom is forced to stay with aunt and uncle for the holidays. He hates the "no-garden"-ness of their city flat, and a cranky old landlady who lives in the attic. One night, the old grandfather clock downstairs struck 13. Tom is led to open the back door, and he finds a blooming and live garden, which he learns later isn't there during the daytime.

In the garden world, time stood still for him. He befriends Hattie, a girl as lonely as he is. But why is time skipping each night he visits there? Sometimes it's summer, sometimes it's winter, sometimes Hattie is very young, sometimes she is nearly a young woman.

After reading the summary above, maybe you think this is a ghost story. At first that's what I thought, but it turns out to be not like that. What I love about this book is how time and reality all seemed just a blur. The author weaves Tom's day-life with his life in the midnight-garden deftly. In his day-life, Tom struggled to find the explanation to the garden. Things are going bad (to his mind) when his stay at his aunt and uncle is nearly over, and he found he didn't want to leave the midnight-garden, nor let it change.

Carnegie Medal Winner 1958

This is one of those novels that I'll remember and appreciate in time more than I do now. The story is a good one, and there are many memorable scenes. However, I found the writing rather tedious, sluggish; I kept wanting the pace of the narrative to pick up. The final forty pages are quite lovely, and the final encounter choked me up. Still, I don't know that I'd recommend this to a child - certainly not before "The Borrowers" or "The Children of Green Knowe."

When the dreamer dreams who dreams the dreamer? Do people change their essence as they age? And can Eternity be contained in a dream? Big questions, imponderable maybe, but ones raised by a reading of Tom's Midnight Garden, first published over sixty years ago but retaining a freshness whilst reflecting the angst of childhood.

Though set in 1958 -- when, incidentally, I was roughly the same age as young Tom -- the story also harks back to the late Victorian period, specifically the late 1880s and 1890s. This is the time of the midnight garden, when orphan Hatty is growing up in a Cambridgeshire villa, reluctantly taken in by an unsympathetic aunt and largely left to her own devices.

Meanwhile -- and it is a curious 'meanwhile' -- Tom Long is sent to stay over summer with his aunt and uncle, in quarantine while his younger brother Peter recovers from measles. Like Hatty he is isolated from his contemporaries, and his yearning for company of his own age chimes in with the mystery of the grandfather clock that incorrectly marks the hours. At one witching hour, when thirteen is struck, Tom finds his way through the back door leading to a plot out of time.

This is a modern classic which, incomprehensibly, I've avoided up till now, and I have no idea why. I thought that maybe because it was regarded as somehow 'worthy' I may have been put off; and when I was reading its slow but atmospheric opening chapters in which nothing much happens I was almost convinced that was the case.

Then something wonderful occurred about the halfway mark and I couldn't wait to see what was in the next chapter, and then the next. It was almost as if the concept of Time -- which plays so much of a part in proceedings -- was being simultaneously telescoped and stretched out on elastic. The climax of the story occurs during the severe winter of 1894-5 when rivers all over Europe and North America froze solid for months and ice skating was almost universal: Tom and Hatty's epic journey down to Castleford (as Cambridge is called here) and on to Ely proves a turning point for their relationship and both their lives.

Like all the best novels Tom's Midnight Garden keeps one thinking long after the last page is turned: the nature of change (already the rivers of the 1950s are polluted, and green space built on), the different concerns of youngsters and young adults, and the lack of understanding, even sympathy, shown by an older generation all emerge as themes. Has as much changed in the six decades since the novel was published as it did following the late Victorian period depicted in its pages?

But the heart of the story is the seemingly unlikely friendship which grows up between Tom Long and Henrietta Melbourne, both of whom appear ghost-like to the other, a feature which you might think would prove unsurmountable. How it unfolds is gentle and natural, how it becomes heartache for Tom is inevitable. The couple in the garden, the realisation not of their nakedness but of growing differences in their ages, the expulsion from their paradise -- it's hard not to see this as a metaphor, not necessarily of a religious nature, more of how we change as we age. Are we the same person when we're many decades older? Can we remember what we were like at an age of relative innocence?

Pearce's storytelling is artless, so that you're not distracted by stylistic or verbal tics. The cultivated garden, the different seasons, the wildlife are mute yet telling actors in the drama, and the sense of generous space (despite hedges and the wall with a sundial) expands Tom's nightly excursions out into orchard and meadow and beyond, down the river and through the fens.

Susan Einzig's original line illustrations which feature as chapter headings are so vivid and so perfectly capture details in the story that it's hard to think that any others would serve so well. Like a fly in amber or the mechanism of a clock that has wound down to a standstill they characterise the fateful phrase inscribed on the timepiece's face: Time no longer. I'm glad to have finally made the acquaintance of this modern classic, a deserving winner of the Carnegie medal and a timeless evocation of youthfulness.

I'm disappointed. In the book and in myself. This took me forever to read it, and it was so easy! I liked what the book was about, but was disappointed in the book itself. It had WAY too many details that were unneeded. This book was altogether boring. The ending got better, but not by much.

I can't remember how this ended up on my radar or TBR (I believe because it's one of Philip Pullman's favorites and blurbed for its 60 anniversary) but I found it to be a delightful and imaginative middle grade book with a unique and heartwarming take on friendship. Compared to modern middle-grade lit, this might feel a little dated and slow at times, but there are some really magical moments and excellent twists that should still hook children and adult readers alike and keep them captivated until the end.

The story is not quite as magical as I was hoping. Overall it has a lonely, "gray" feeling. But there is still an air of mystery and enchantment keeping the reader wondering what is actually happening. I'm not sure what the message is. Maybe it is simply about friendship blossoming despite seemingly un-crossable barriers of time. The nature of what makes something "real" is also explored. The strongest presence in the book may well be, for me, the grandfather clock, an object that always holds intrigue for me.

I was surprised finding myself that I really liked this book. This is my 98th book this year and just my 2nd children's fiction. If this were not one of the children's books in the 501 Must Read Books, I would not have picked this up.

Time Slip is used brilliantly in the plot that you don't know between the two main characters, Tom or Hatty, is the ghost and who is a real human being. To give you an example, in the movie Sixth Sense, you know right away who are the ghosts because the boy character says "I see dead people." Here, at first, I thought Hatty was clearly the ghost until she described Tom and then I did not know anymore. Then in the end, there is another surprise but I will not tell you what as I do not want to spoil your reading.

The final scene is the most heartwarming and moving scene in a children's book that I've so far encountered. Prior to this, my most moving scene was in the book Charlotte's Web (1952) specifically when the many baby spiders appear in the barn one morning while Charlotte (the lady spider) is explaining to Wilbur (the pig) the passing of time. The difference between the two is that the characters in this book, Tom and the elderly Hatty, are real people so it is easy to identify with them. They don't talk about anything profound like Charlotte and Wilbur but the revelation is so gripping that would not think that this book was published during the time when your parents were probably not born yet (1958).

The grandfather's clock ringing on the 13th hour is for me very imaginative. The ice skater reminded me of the movie Somewhere in Time. There are so many memorable elements in this book that had Pearce only used more complex language, this book could be for adults and maybe classified as either a book under sci-fi or horror genres or maybe a fusion of those. Or throw in a love story between Tom and Hatty and this could be good material for a romantic movie.

Intelligent writing. Innovative plot. Immensely imaginative. Why is it that I am only reading these beautiful children's books now that I am past the mid-point of my life here on earth?

Mind you, don't underestimate the children's books. Sometimes, they are even more complex and engaging than other popular bestsellers written with adult readers in mind.

This story is magical and written in the style of English children's books. At times I got confussed, but at the end I got it. An okay story, but missed something.