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A B's Reviews > Tom's Midnight Garden
Tom's Midnight Garden
by
I feel like a curmudgeon for writing this review. I'm Archie Bunkering a book that has warmed the hearts of English children and adults for nearly 60 years.
But I can't help it. I found it boring and downright confusing, plus I abhor Scooby-Doo resolution. You know, the kind where it's all laid out in the last few pages of a story.
The book starts off OK. Tom gets shuffled off to a distant relative while his brother recovers from measles. He's lonely and isolated. Then one night, the clock strikes 13 o' clock.
Sounds awesome, right?
Well, yeah, except all that happens is that he winds up in a garden. He befriends a young girl named Hattie and suspects he's visiting a different time period, but can't be bothered to ask the year. Hattie apparently doesn't think it is weird that Tom never ages or that only she can see him or that he wears pajamas even in the dead of winter.
They go on a series of increasingly dull "adventures", like walking down to the river, and there's some weird side story about hiding a pair of ice skates.
I would have liked the book better if Hattie's age had not changed at random. Tom popping into her life via the garden made me too sad. All Tom has to do is wait for his aunt and uncle to go to sleep to visit Hattie, but poor Hattie has to sit around for years at a time wondering when her best friend will show up. The sadness (view spoiler).
I guess that's what got me. The world is a sad place at times; I read to escape the sadness, not have it dumped on me like a load of bricks.
Whiny point: I was also disappointed at the poor explanation for the time travel and magic of the garden.
by
I feel like a curmudgeon for writing this review. I'm Archie Bunkering a book that has warmed the hearts of English children and adults for nearly 60 years.
But I can't help it. I found it boring and downright confusing, plus I abhor Scooby-Doo resolution. You know, the kind where it's all laid out in the last few pages of a story.
The book starts off OK. Tom gets shuffled off to a distant relative while his brother recovers from measles. He's lonely and isolated. Then one night, the clock strikes 13 o' clock.
Sounds awesome, right?
Well, yeah, except all that happens is that he winds up in a garden. He befriends a young girl named Hattie and suspects he's visiting a different time period, but can't be bothered to ask the year. Hattie apparently doesn't think it is weird that Tom never ages or that only she can see him or that he wears pajamas even in the dead of winter.
They go on a series of increasingly dull "adventures", like walking down to the river, and there's some weird side story about hiding a pair of ice skates.
I would have liked the book better if Hattie's age had not changed at random. Tom popping into her life via the garden made me too sad. All Tom has to do is wait for his aunt and uncle to go to sleep to visit Hattie, but poor Hattie has to sit around for years at a time wondering when her best friend will show up. The sadness (view spoiler).
I guess that's what got me. The world is a sad place at times; I read to escape the sadness, not have it dumped on me like a load of bricks.
Whiny point: I was also disappointed at the poor explanation for the time travel and magic of the garden.
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Reading Progress
January 13, 2017
– Shelved
January 13, 2017
– Shelved as:
to-read
April 27, 2017
–
Started Reading
June 16, 2017
–
Finished Reading
