This essay is about Tom’s Midnight Garden a book written by Philippa Pearce. The story is about a lonely boy’s adventure in an enchanted garden, who finds a new playmate in Hattie and who shares in the adventure with him. It is also about “Tom’s development of the conscious state in childhood as he becomes aware of complex emphatic feelings and more diverse states of mind which comes about through his desperate need for freedom.” (Natov: 2009, 223) Furthermore how time works and relates to the storyline.
Tom Long is forced as he feels into exile away from his home, his family and playmate, Peter, his brother, who is in quarantine as he is infected with measles. So Tom is sent to his Uncle Alan’s and Aunt Gwen’s home. He views the stay with misgivings because they have no children that he can play with or even a garden as they live in a flat, which is part of an old manor house turned into flats. Which is owned by a reclusive old lady called Mrs. Bartholomew.
Tom notices a grandfather clock which chimes loudly and that his uncle Alan complains clangs the incorrect time of thirteen O’ clock. His Aunt shows him around the flat and proudly shows him his room, when he sees the window he says, “That windows got bars on I am not a baby!” (Pearce, 1993, p). One night, Tom, lay sleepless. He heard the sound of the clock strike so Tom goes to check the correct time; he leaves the flat to look at the clock in the hallway downstairs. It was midnight, but Tom had counted thirteen. Meanwhile he thinks he will investigate his surroundings, he goes to open the back door. He pulls the big bolt; he opens the door and is amazed to see a beautiful garden in front of him.
Next day when he enquires about the garden, Tom is told that he i...
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Bibliography
Montgomery, H. & Nicola. J. Watson eds. (2009). Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. H. Montgomery. Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. p 203-6.
Montgomery, H. & Nicola. J. Watson eds. (2009). Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. R. Natov. Childhood and the Green World. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. p221-5.
Montgomery, H. & Nicola. J. Watson eds. (2009). Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. M. Rustin. & M. Rustin Loneliness, Dreaming and Discovery. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. p207.
Montgomery, H. & Nicola. J. Watson eds. (2009). Children’s Literature Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. M. Nikolajeva. Midnight Gardens, Magic Wells. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. P216-20.
Pearce, P. (1993). Tom’s Midnight Garden. Puffin Books Ltd, London
Wilson, Nance S. “ZINDEL, Paul.” Continuum Encyclopedia Of Children’s Literature (2003): 848-849. Literary Reference Center. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Sandner, David. "Romanticism and Transcendence in Nineteenth-Century Children's Fantasy Literature." The Fantastic Sublime. Westport, C.T.: Greenwood Press. 45-65, 142-147.
---. The Wind in the Willows . 1908. Classics of Children's Literature . Ed. John W. Griffith and
Senick, Gerard J., and Hedblad, Alan. Children’s Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, and Commentary on Books for Children and Young People (Volumes 14, 34, 35). Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1995..
High school students in many American schools first read this book in an English class, which has been a staple for many schools. A required reading assignment exposes many more people to the book. Even though the book is considered to be a children’s book by many, it is still enjoyed by people of all ages.
... Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Tom Burns.
Cather's “The Garden Lodge” is about a woman named Caroline Noble whose husband, Howard, asked her if she would like to demolish their old garden lodge and replace it with a summer house. The conflict in the story is Caroline is not sure if she wants to knock down the old garden lodge because it brings back memories of when opera singer Raymond d'Esquerre, spent a month at their place. The resolution is that Caroline decides to go on with building the summer house and demolishing the garden lodge. The author uses flashback to explain how Caroline grew up and also when she reminiscences about her time with Raymond.
Falconer, Rachel. The Crossover Novel: Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its Adult Readership. New York: Routledge, 2009.
...ia J. Campbell. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996. 39-65. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Scot Peacock. Vol. 82. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
Maybin, J. &Woodhead, M. (2003). Childhoods in context. Southern Gate, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Children's literature the movie" STUART LITTLE” Three scenes i.e. when Stuart meets a girl of exactly his height for the first time, on the way home from school in his miniature red sports car an injured bird Margalo falls into the car when Falcon swoops very suddenly out of the sky after Margalo has fallen into Stuart’s car and continues to chase them until they get safely home, the disturbing scenes graphic description of how Falcons kill their prey, that is by dropping them from a great height and a little later Stuart Little is dropped from a very tall building, picked from the Columbia Pictures presentation Stuart little, produced by Jason Clark, with Jeff Franklin and Steve Waterman present the demonstrated overt values in the film, taken home by the children are that friendship and loyalty can triumph over evil. Another message is that you can achieve what you want to, no matter what the obstacles. “You are as big as you feel.” The issues of lying and stealing are addressed, although simplistically determined without real consequences. The children feel like a different speci...
... (eds), Children’s Literature Classic Text and Contemporary Trends, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan in association with Open University
The novel opens with a scene of a desperate, aggravated child being sent away from his home due to a contagious disease. Tom Long’s brother Peter has been stricken with a case of the measles and to protect Tom, his parents have decided it would be best for him to spend the upcoming weeks with his Uncle Alan and Aunt Gwen as Peter recovers. From the onset, it is obvious to the reader that Tom is extremely displeased with the notion of leaving not only his family and home, but also the ...
Potter’s book is, beneath its didactic Victorian narrative, remarkably subtle and subversive in its attitudes towards childhood, and its message to its child readers. Browne’s Voices in the Park, on the other hand, dispenses with any textual narrative; by his use of the devices of postmodernism, visual intertextuality and metaphor, he creates a work of infinite interpretation, in which the active involvement of the reader is key. Although The Tale of Peter Rabbit is not a ‘modern’ picturebook, and was written to a different concept of childhood than Voices in the Park, it certainly falls within Bader’s description.... ... middle of paper ...
"Children's Literature - Early History, Fairy and Folk Tales, Victorian Childrens Literature, Contemporary Childrens Literature - Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society." Internet FAQ Archives - Online Education - Faqs.org. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. .