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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Though I haven’t read much in this genre as an adult, I enjoyed this magical children’s fiction novel and wish I had read it when I was younger. It was a calming change of pace. The characters jump off the page, and as with any good period piece, there is a strong sense of place.
I think as a whole this book doesnt hold up much by todays' standards. Slow moving. Not much happens. I suspect it will bore most children now... but,
The fact that it deals with a kind of time travel is cool for the time (not that this was the first time travel story by any stretch) and when the final act (if you could call it that) kicks in my interested was piqued.
As a kid, and heck as an adult, I love the ideas of this story. Secret doors to other times. Magical clocks hammering away. Is he a ghost? Is she a ghost? Is it all a dream? All of that really gets the imagination going... when you are thinking about it later, after; or when you are telling a friend the story, they will love it.
But as a read it was a bit of slog. I kept putting it down and forgetting about it for a week. It should not have taken me this long to read. It is 200 pages for crying out loud... but I made it through with no regrets exactly. But I am glad I am done. It felt like a job.
The fact that it deals with a kind of time travel is cool for the time (not that this was the first time travel story by any stretch) and when the final act (if you could call it that) kicks in my interested was piqued.
As a kid, and heck as an adult, I love the ideas of this story. Secret doors to other times. Magical clocks hammering away. Is he a ghost? Is she a ghost? Is it all a dream? All of that really gets the imagination going... when you are thinking about it later, after; or when you are telling a friend the story, they will love it.
But as a read it was a bit of slog. I kept putting it down and forgetting about it for a week. It should not have taken me this long to read. It is 200 pages for crying out loud... but I made it through with no regrets exactly. But I am glad I am done. It felt like a job.
Loved this book. Thoroughly enjoyed the writing.
Very dated. I can't see a kid today picking it up and getting very far. There was a quaint type of charm about the whole thing that I appreciate as an adult. Kind of a view of what life would have been like as a child 'back in the day'.
Summary: Tom finds himself in the midst of a strange adventure involving a garden that appears only at night and a girl from another time.
Summary: Tom finds himself in the midst of a strange adventure involving a garden that appears only at night and a girl from another time.
I think it's highly probable that I read this when I was a child - it may even have been formative in my lifelong love of time-travel stories. It's a lovely story about a boy separated from his brother because of a contagious childhood disease and how his terribly boring stay with an uncle and aunt turns into a dream-come-true (see the title).
I think I would have quite enjoyed this British award-winner when I was a kid -- child protagonist every night enters a magical garden behind his aunt & uncle's house, that seems to have existed in the past but is not there during the day, and only he can access; meets earlier inhabitants of the house there; learns some secrets. Certainly in the vein of Narnia, Phantom Tollbooth, or Secret Garden, but I like all of those better -- again, perhaps because I read them in my youth. May try reading it to my 6yo to see what she thinks, though I think the language/descriptions may be hard for her to sit through. It's kind of slow-paced, not a lot of action.
This is another 3.5 star, if that were possible. It is a very sweet kids' book, perhaps for the 9 to 12 crowd.
It starts slowly, but then it does kind of magically capture one's attention, almost against one's will!
It starts slowly, but then it does kind of magically capture one's attention, almost against one's will!
A classic for a reason; a sweet and melancholy young adult novel about dreams and memory and the passage of time.
Wow. Philip Pullman was exactly right when he said this is a perfect book. Absolutely perfect. I'm so glad I learned of it and got to read it!
It's the middle of the night and Tom can't sleep. Shipped off to his aunt and uncle's when his brother got sick, sleep has been the last thing on his mind for a while. Rather, Tom's summer has become one of waiting, with nothing to do and no one to do it with. But when a midnight walk reveals a mysterious secret, Tom realizes that his boring existence is about to change and something truly magical is about to begin...