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While spending the summer in a house by the sea, four cousins, Roger, Ann, Eliza, and Jack, discover a bank of wild thyme whose magic propels them on a series of adventures back and forth through time.Tags
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by bookel
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My kids and I continue to love Edward Eager's books. In this one, I especially enjoyed playing with the Natterjack's accent while reading aloud, and all of the time/thyme puns. I also love the eye-rolling the other kids in the story do in response to Jack's budding teenager-ness and the intersection of this story with those in other classics (and with Eager's Magic by the Lake) and with historical events. The premise is pretty much the same as in the other books---the kids discover an "in" to magic, they have to either figure out or make up the rules to the magic, they break the rules and all heck breaks loose, they learn some character lesson, they exhaust the magic, and the story's done. I can't figure out why I don't find this show more formula tiring yet. I'm just glad I don't because my daughter's not at all tired of the books yet.
With all the Nesbit-worship in Eager's books, I really need to read something of Nesbit's in addition to Five Children and It. We tried The Book of Dragons a few years ago, but my daughter seems to be very particular about the type of fantasy story she'll accept, and she didn't get into that one. show less
With all the Nesbit-worship in Eager's books, I really need to read something of Nesbit's in addition to Five Children and It. We tried The Book of Dragons a few years ago, but my daughter seems to be very particular about the type of fantasy story she'll accept, and she didn't get into that one. show less
I remember enjoying Eager's books borrowed from the library when I was small: this one, and "Half Magic". ("Magic by the Lake" was a bit contrived though). He admired E Nesbit's magical stories and modelled his American children's adventures on them. This is funny and entertaining; we will just have a brief sigh and headshake over the "Red Indians" who exist only to scalp people, and the cannibals on the desert island who eat people..... There is an episode featuring the Underground Railway and the children help a slave family to escape in that, so he does redeem himself a bit.
A children's magical adventure very much in the vane of E.Nesbit stories. Unfortunately, it's constantly acknowledging how similar it is to the works of E.Nesbit, which does not help matters. It is especially unhelpful due to the fact that it is quite dissimilar in one respect, which is that it is nowhere near as imaginative.
It picks up quite a bit towards the end but is still fairly tame and boring compared to the predecessors it tries to ape.
It picks up quite a bit towards the end but is still fairly tame and boring compared to the predecessors it tries to ape.
Time and again, the children from "Knight's Castle" have longed for another magic adventure.
But you can't find magic just anywhere. It doesn't grow like grass. It requires the right place and the right time . . . Or thyme, as the case may be. At Mrs. Whiton's house, magic grows as wild as the banks of thyme in the garden. Growing there is olden time, future time, and common time. Or so says the Natterjack, the toadlike creature who accompanies the children on a series of hilarious, always unpredictable adventures.
"Anything can happen," the Natterjack says, "when you have all the time in the world."
But you can't find magic just anywhere. It doesn't grow like grass. It requires the right place and the right time . . . Or thyme, as the case may be. At Mrs. Whiton's house, magic grows as wild as the banks of thyme in the garden. Growing there is olden time, future time, and common time. Or so says the Natterjack, the toadlike creature who accompanies the children on a series of hilarious, always unpredictable adventures.
"Anything can happen," the Natterjack says, "when you have all the time in the world."
I really, really, REALLY hated the illustrations of the natterjack. Hated them so much it interfered with my enjoyment of this otherwise enchanting and enchanted story. I loved the central, thyme-y conceit here. I beg to differ that EVERYONE wanted Jo to end up with Laurie in [b:Little Women|1934|Little Women (Little Women # 1/2)|Louisa May Alcott|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309282614s/1934.jpg|3244642], however. I'm a huge Eager fan, and this is a lovely entry in the canon.
Four cousins find a garden that allows them to travel magically through time (by sniffing thyme). As in all of Eager's books, however, magic is unpredictable and often uncontrollable. This is a great book to read aloud with a mixed age group because the thrills and danger are not too excessive for younger listeners, but the wit and history based humor will appeal to older kids and adults. Another good thing about Eager is that his characters are realistic and interesting. His girls are often brave and forthright, and the boys don't have all the fun. Solid moral values but with a sense of fun and self-deprecating humor.
This is my original copy of The Time Garden, given me as a child. I dearly loved all the Edward Eager books, but this one especially interested me because the children (the second generation in this case) are using thyme to travel back in time and I was always interested in history. I particularly recall an encounter with realistically tough American patriots in the revolution, whom the toad who presides over the Time Garden provokes by singing pro-British songs, and an encounter with Queen Elizabeth I who is characteristically strong-minded and at the same time capable of being charmed by a young man.
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Author Information
17 Works 13,368 Members
Edward Eager (1911-1964) worked primarily as a playwright and lyricist. It wasn't until 1951, while searching for books to read to his young son, that he began writing children's stories. In each of his books, he carefully acknowledges his indebtedness to E. Nesbit, whom he considered the best children's writer of all time -- "so that any child show more who likes my books and doesn't know hers may be led back to the master of us all" show less
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Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Time Garden
- Original publication date
- 1958
- People/Characters
- Ann; Roger; Eliza; Jack; Mrs Whiton; Old Henry (show all 7); Natterjack
- Dedication
- For Cindy Packard, a persuasive persuader
- First words
- The house and the garden were waiting.
- Quotations
- If you have ever been to Boston (and everyone should go there at least once), you will know that as a city it is a bewildering mixture of modern improvements and the relics of antiquity, and it is interesting, for example, to... (show all) come out from buying plastic clothespins and chocolate-strawberry-marshmallow-banana splits in a department store glittering with neon, and find yourself face to face with the Old South Church. And the streets have wonderful old names like Milk and Pump. -- Chapter 4 (p.82)
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)They had all the time in the world.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Kids, Fantasy
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PZ7 .E115 .T — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Juvenile belles lettres
- BISAC
Statistics
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- 16,484
- Reviews
- 16
- Rating
- (4.18)
- Languages
- Chinese, English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 16
- ASINs
- 7