But not tonight. Tonight, that door opens into a garden. A huge, beautiful garden, the type that's full of trees to climb, places to explore, adventures to have around every corner.

He tries pushing hard against one of the solid wooden doors. Now, if he can't open it, Tom's going to try going through it! "At first, the body came through evenly from top to bottom. Then, the upper part seemed to stop, and the bottom part came through in its entirety, legs first. Then one arm came through, then another. Whilst one of the reasons I don’t watch this type of children’s drama is that I generally can’t stand child actors, finding their performances often very wooden or even worse, seriously over the top, Jeremy Rampling’s portrayal of the lonely and bored ‘Tom Long’ is commendable for a young actor. Although not perfect throughout, overall his performance is secure and believable. Similarly, his co-star Caroline Waldron as’ Hatty’ is slightly over the top at times. However, as the series goes on and the two spend more screen time together, both seem to develop a good relationship, convincing the audience of their growing friendship. Another noteworthy, although brief, performance is that of Renếe Asherson as ‘Mrs Bartholemhew. Asherson manages to give off a great mysterious, stern and scary feel as the little seen and unwelcoming landlady and yet her humanity and joy is overwhelming at the end. Mrs Bartholomew is two characters in the novel, the elderly lady who lives on the third floor of the converted house, and the young girl whom Tom meets in the Victorian era. As an older woman she is sometimes cantankerous and the other residents of the house seem to be quite wary of her, and anxious not to upset her with too much noise. Mrs Bartholomew misses her childhood and the way that things used to be, and dreams about the glory days of the house every night. Tom walks into the garden into whichever scenario she was dreaming about and so we know that each of these moments in her life was memorable and important.

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Writer's choice 317: John Rowe Townsend". 16 August 2011. normblog: The weblog of Norman Geras. Retrieved 2012-11-18. This is Townsend's retrospective review of Tom's Midnight Garden under a short preface by the host. In 1951 Pearce spent a long period in hospital recovering from tuberculosis. She passed the time there thinking about a canoe trip she had taken many years before, which became the inspiration for her first book, Minnow on the Say, published in 1955 with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. It was a commended runner-up for the annual Carnegie Medal. It was adapted for television in Canada as a 1960 TV series with the original title, and for British television in 1972 as Treasure over the Water. Loneliness, Dreaming and Discovery: Tom's Midnight Garden ", Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies in Modern Children's Fiction by Margaret and Michael Rustin, Karnac Books, 2002, pp. 27-39. Did I just cry through the entire (admittedly short) last chapter of a children's book? Seriously???? Pearce's short story collections, The Elm Street Lot and What the Neighbors Did, are realistic accounts of everyday events in the lives of young people. In The Battle of Bubble and Squeak the members of a family argue about a pair of gerbils. The story examines family tensions as the pet gerbils change the lives of all concerned.

In the first chapter of Narratives of Love and Loss: Studies in Modern Children's Fiction, Margaret and Michael Rustin analyse the emotional resonances of Tom's Midnight Garden and describe its use of imagination and metaphor, also comparing it to The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. [8] Tom’s first visit to the garden is ‘a real expedition’. Can you write a story about a different expedition?

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English manor homes seem to inspire a certain kind of time travel story. They are usually dream like and include a friendship across the ages. The only caveat, the protagonist from the present is usually unable to alter past events. Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce fits perfectly in this category and it's one of my favorite examples. Imagine that there was a thirteenth hour after noon and after midnight. Plan a new timetable for your twenty-six hour day.