In 1989,the BBC did a TV adaptation of this book which my almost 11 year old self was enchanted by. My dad bought me the book, with the picture from the TV show on the front, but from that day to this I had never read more than a few pages. My love of time travel stories should really have prompted me to read it earlier. I have even seen 2 theatrical performances of it (but have never managed to find the BBC programme again online).

So my rating of this book may be tinged with nostalgia, but it really is well written and plausible. Shared dreaming as a method of time travel is better than other ideas I've come across (hypnosis, magic belts, holding something gold and believing yourself somewhere else...flying deloreans fuelled by garbage...)

Sometimes you re-read books from your childhood and they're not the same at all and you miss what you thought they were... and sometimes they are exactly what you remember. This book is the latter.

از روی این کتاب سریالی 6 قسمتی در سال 1989 ساخته شده است.
شبکه اول سیما، سریال رویای باغ در نیمه شب را پپخش کرده بود.

This is a classic British children's fantasy novel that I probably read when I was younger though I have little memory of it. It is a slow descriptive immersive read with a dreamlike quality -- very fitting as it turns out the fantasy elements are explained as shared dreams. The explanation is a little shaky but if you're willing to go just go with it, it's an enjoyable journey, at least for an older reader (most modern children are likely to find it a bit dull with very little in the way of action). One of the things I enjoyed the most about it was the period setting, both of when it was written but also the connection to a further past through the intergenerational sharing of dreams. It is a wonderful demonstration for children of how the old are living carriers of what seems to children the ancient past. It is also a love-letter to gardens and free-range childhood explorations without constant adult supervision.

Borrowed from the library, this one took a while to get into. It's an awkward read-aloud, and hasn't aged all that well. We (Spider and I) gave up on reading this one together, and she encouraged me to finish it alone, and to let her know if it got any better. We did the same thing with Black Beauty, which for me did not get any better, but thankfully this one did. In the least, moreso than BB did.

I didn't find Tom a particularly interesting protagonist, and although Hatty was slightly more likeable, she didn't do a great deal for me either. Saying this, although I knew that Mrs. Bartholomew would end up being Hatty, when she said it, I cried. I have no idea how my mind works. I also found the "resolution" about how and why he was able to go there a little patchy and incomplete.

I think this book works much better as a "read with your eyes" book, rather than a read-aloud, but I still don't think I'd recommend it.

4 stars.

Did I read this in one day? Maybe…

This was a re-read for me. I didn't remember anything about it so we'll see if it "sticks" better this time around! Very nice writing with some beautiful passages.

I’m 69 years old and read this wonderful book when I was a child. For me, who needed and was addicted to the escape of books, as a child, this magical book did not disappoint.

This was such a great book. Tom and Hattie are such a great pair of friends. I think this would be a great read in conjunction with The Secret Garden. What a great ending with a tie in to post WWI.

I first read this when I was about eight or nine after watching an old BBC adaptation and have loved it ever since. Given that the book was first written almost 60 years ago, the language today would probably be way beyond a lot of contemporary novels targeted at the under 10s, but when I was a child, there was little choice so we just got on with it.
A familiar story, of course, that of Tom Long sent to stay with childless relatives and miserable at the prospect of weeks without his brother and their garden. That is, until the strange grandfather clock strikes thirteen and he discovers a whole new world and a strange playmate in Hatty, a small girl wearing old fashioned clothes.

An absolute delight, no matter how many times I've read it (it must be in double figures by now!), and a truly great book.

Tom’s brother has come down with measles and Tom is sent to stay with his aunt and uncle for the duration of his brother’s sickness. Tom is not happy about having to stay cooped up in a small apartment. And then everything changes. A clock strikes thirteen and Tom makes his way out a door and into a magical garden where he makes a new friend and has a thousand exciting adventures.

I’m not a fan of ghost stories and I like my magical stories to include super powers, but despite the ghosts in the book and the lack of special abilities in this story, I loved this book. I became a child when Tom entered the garden and I went with Tom as he wandered through time.

A young boy is sent back in time to a magical garden and friend by an antique clock. A similar storyline to one of my favorite childhood classics "A Secret Garden". I'm sure this book resonates with children, however, as an adult I find I can't connect to this at 63 years old.