Students from 5e share their readings with you through book reviews :
Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
The story is set at the end of the 19th century. Tom
Long is a young boy full of life and imagination. His young brother falls sick,
diagnosed with measles and Tom is forced to stay with his Aunt Gwen and his
uncle Alan because his parents fear he might catch the measles. Tom is
reluctant to go, as he was planning on having fun with his brother Peter during
the summer. Tom's hope of having fun quickly dies out as he discovers the small
flat he has to live in. Not only is the flat small, there is also no garden!
Tom is very disappointed and fears that he will spend all the holidays inside,
bored with reading girls books that his aunt gives him. However, Tom quickly
discovers that every night, as soon as Mrs Bartholomew's clock (the landlady's
clock) strikes thirteen, a secret garden appears where Tom spends all of this
nights. Tom meets new characters and lives adventures with them. But Tom's
imagination is soon put to doubt as he discovers the truth about his secret
garden...
My favourite character is Hatty. She is a strange little girl that
Tom meets in the secret garden. They become very good friends and meet every
night. They both enjoy doing things together such as ice skating during winter
for instance. Tom can only see Hatty at night and often wonders during the day
what Hatty is doing. I believe that Tom and Hatty secretly love each other.
Hatty is my favourite character because as a girl, I feel I relate
to her. Besides, I also like her because she is a magical character who only
appears at night, which makes her more fascinating. She is very nice with Tom
and wants to know him better.
I enjoyed this book because I was captivated when reading it : I
really felt part of the plot and had the feeling I was a character, watching
the scene. The descriptions of the secret garden were fascinating and very
accurate, which helped me imagine precisely what the garden looked like : “a
great lawn where flowerbeds bloomed, a towering fir tree, and thick,
beetle-browed yews that humped their shapes down two sides of the lawn”.
Besides, the fact that the main characters are approximately my age makes me
relate to them. I would recommend this book because it's a very good novel
about travelling back in time. It is very nicely written and the magical world
described lets imagination soar.
Wilhelmine S., 5e7
