Customer Reviews

Tom's Midnight Garden

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All children should be given the chance to read this book. It was the favourite story of my childhood. It is a beautiful, haunting evocative story of childhood, growing up, adulthood and old age. It's also unbearably sad, in a happy kind of way, if that makes sense. It's the story of life. It's beautifully written, and a haunting evocation of a place, a garden, long ago - so powerfully written you'll feel you'll come to know every corner of it - the nut stubbs, the greenhouse, the meadow, the sundial wall and the stream and so forth, that it comes alive in your mind - the old fir tree, that Hatty used to like to stand under in a high wind, and feel the roots "pulling like muscles" under her feet - so wonderfully drawn you'll not want to leave it's world. You can read it when a child and appreciate it, and also as an adult and view it from a different perspective, of a story of a bored boy and one very lonely little girl, and how their friendship transcends even time itself. The ending is so powerful, so moving that it'll have you in tears, and yet it's treated without sentimentality and without condescending to it's readers, of any age. This book is a part of my life, forever.

This is a true classic for all time. Buy it today.

This really is a beautiful, haunting, magical, classic book. I was so happy I discovered it as a kid because I had heard nothing about it and haven't since. I highly recommend reading it. It has a really nice feel to it and she's a good writer. Satisfying ending, too.

This is a wonderful book for children. I read it as a child and could not remember the name but kept searching for it and finally found it. I purchased it for my children this past Christmas. They're not quite ready for it but I hope they will love it as much as I did. (I read it again as soon as I received it, and still loved it.)Tom's Midnight Garden: Anniversary Edition

I first read this book as a young teenager and no matter how many times I re-read it, I am always moved almost to tears by the depth of feeling the author writes about. A simple concept such as loneliness connects two characters across the abyss of time. The author skillfully handles the idea of the past existing concurrently with the present. The simple wish for a friend is the underlying force of this story. This is a book that once I read, I never forgot.

With the possible exception of Falkner's "Moonfleet" this is my all-time favourite children's book. I loved it as a child, read it as an adolescent, enjoyed it as an adult, & read it aloud to my children as a father. The story here is how a boy finds his way into the past of a house he is visiting, and his growing fascination with the life of a little girl in that past. The style of writing is so matter of fact, i think i truly believed as a child because there is no sense of "look how cute this idea is" you often get in books of the sort. The reader is invited to fully participate in and identify with both Tom and Hattie, and their growing friendship. The climax of the book, as Tom discovers what has truly been happening, never fails to move me to tears; just thinking about Mrs. Bartholomew's line right now is tightening my throat. Read this book.

Tom's Midnight Garden is an awesome book. I love how it keeps you in suspence about what is actually going on. I also love how it talks about past and present together. I have some friends who didn't like the book very much because it was difficult for them to comprehend the creativity of the book. I also have some friends who found the book extremely interesting and would recomend it to anyone, as would I.

Ah, rereading this book took me back. It really has everything a child could want from a story - sympathetic characters, some sentiment, some action, and an excellent ending. Incidentally, BBC television did a very good dramatisation of this in the 1970s. I'm sure today's children wouldn't mind a repeat.

I discovered this book when I bought it to read to my children. Pure delight for fantasy lovers. You won't be able to put it down.

This book was, as others have pointed out, something I read as a child. The book itself was on loan to me from a friend of the family.

Years later I inquired with her what indeed that book was, having forgotten over time. She told me and I instantly went and bought it.

It's a WONDERFUL story, a sort-of child-like love story. I personally think that they should make it into a movie.

I first read this book at age 12, and still love it today at age 50. As a child, I loved it as a mystery, a ghost story. As I grew older, I loved it for its delving into the mysteries of time and space and religion. Now, it seems to me, most of all, a story of how two lonely children - a liitle boy named Tom and a little girl named Hattie - found each other's worlds and shared their lives. The ending never fails to move me to tears.