Tom's Midnight Garden - A Classic Children's Book For Today

Tom’s Midnight Garden, by Philippa Pearce, is a wonderful story about a lonely and unhappy boy who periodically goes back in time, where he befriends a young girl and participates in her life as she grows up. The book has a surprise ending, where we discover that what we have read is not simply a time travel story. Tom’s Midnight Garden was published in 1958 and is considered to be a classic children’s book for children aged about eight and above.

I’ve always believed that a children’s book should also be enjoyable for adults. In fact, I didn’t discover Tom’s Midnight Garden until I was an adult. I was an avid reader as a child (and still am), and visited the local library every weekend during the school year and several times a week during school holidays, yet somehow I missed Tom’s Midnight Garden. I’m very glad that I eventually found it. I loved it right away and have reread it many times.

When his brother develops measles at the start of the summer holiday from school, Tom is sent to stay with his aunt and uncle to avoid catching the disease. They live in a large Victorian house that has been converted into flats. Tom has to stay inside his aunt and uncle’s flat in case he is contagious and is lonely, frustrated and miserable.

One night he hears the grandfather clock that stands in the downstairs hallway strike thirteen. Tom goes downstairs and opens the back door in the hope that the moonlight will illuminate the clock face. To his amazement and delight, instead of finding a small, dingy backyard and rubbish bins, which his aunt and uncle had told him about, he finds a large and beautiful garden.

Tom discovers that the garden is only present at night in his world, although it may be any time of day in the garden when he arrives there. He also finds that he is invisible to most of the people that he meets in the new world. One person who can see him, however, is a young girl named Hatty, who lives in the house where Tom is staying, as it existed in the past. Hatty is an unhappy orphan who is being cared for by relatives that are not pleased to have her in the family. The two children become playmates and good friends.

Time seems to move more rapidly in the past than in the present. As the story progresses, Hatty grows up and develops new interests. Tom gradually appears less and less distinct to her until he disappears from Hatty's view entirely. On the last night of his stay with his aunt and uncle, a frantic Tom opens the back door of the house and finds no garden. In despair he cries out to an invisible Hatty, awakening the tenants in the flats, including the elderly and unfriendly landlady who owns the house and lives in the attic flat.

The next day Tom goes upstairs to apologize to the landlady and discovers that she is Hatty. The two have a joyful reunion. Hatty reveals that every night she has been dreaming of her past. Her dreaming met Tom’s yearning for company and fun to create the garden and the past.

The imaginative story and magical atmosphere aren't the only attractions in this book. Tom's feelings and moods are depicted vividly and the scenery is described with care. Although the ending of the story is happy, with Hatty inviting both Tom and his brother to return for a visit, there are some intriguing questions left for the reader to puzzle over. How was the garden actually created? Does the past still exist, or can it be recreated? Are dreams real? What if it was possible to join someone in their memories and to interact with them there? What if memories could become reality?

Tom’s Midnight Garden won the Carnegie Medal in the year that it was published. This medal is awarded by CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals), a British organization. A movie, three BBC televisions series and a stage play have been created based on the story.

The reviews of the book by both children and adults have been very positive over the years, even recently. Many adults say that this is one story that has stayed in their mind since childhood. Although the book was written over fifty years ago, it has stood the test of time and is still appealing to many children today.