http://readfantasybooks.wordpress.com/I really enjoyed reading The Time Garden much more than I did Knights Castle. These two books have the same set of characters, but the story in this book was much more interesting to me.I am beginning to enjoy this set of characters more as I continue to read about their adventures. However, I do not like Roger, Ann, Eliza, and Jack as much as I do the children from the other books. Jack is my least favorite character in this book because he is growing out of these fun magical adventures and spends most of his time calling and hanging out with girls. I just found it annoying that it was all Jack talked about. As a result, most of the adventures are with Roger, Ann, and Eliza. Who needs Jack along anyway?I thought the story was pretty interesting, and would be especially interesting to anyone who loves history. The children get to meet Minutemen, Queen Elizabeth I, and even Little Women. They also get to see their parents when they were children. It was interesting to see the other side of the story from the previous book when the children get stranded on the island with the cannibals. Roger, Ann, and Eliza save their parents and discuss whether or not to tell them who they are. It was a very interesting conversation, and one of my favorite parts of the book.The only other thing in the story that bothered me was the Natterjack because he spoke in a British accent which in my opinion would be difficult for a younger child to understand.As in many of the other books there are also some fairly big words, but I believe that is a good thing for younger children. It promotes a good vocabulary even if they have to stop reading and look up a word in a dictionary. There are also many historical and literary references as well as lessons to be learned.I think The Time Garden would be a great book for anyone who has enjoyed the previous books in this series. It would also be a fun book to read aloud to your children. You don’t really need to read all of the other books to be able to read any particular one in the series so far. I believe you can just skip around if you really want to.
"Anything can happen when you have all the time in the world" p 20 on the sundial in the thyme patch reminds me of Jane Louise Curry's Parsley Sage Rosemary and Time https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . The froggy Natterjack proud Cockney accent " 'ighly superior" p 24 "London bred my grandaddy's grandaddy was .. H'emigrated 'ere" p 24 'ides in a patch of thyme for visiting children. Four cousins re-unite for magic holiday while Roger's dad puts on a London play, other parents tour Europe. Reliable Roger is brother to kindly Ann. She carries Natterjack in pocket. Cousin Eliza looks angry in drawings, sure to "cross two fingers of one hand, behind her back" p 51. Jack ignores others, nearest "keen girl" p 10 inspires "glazed expression" p 8. "Old Mrs Whiton" related "by marriage" calls them in "deep gruff voice" p 12 to "plunged boldly in" p 16 brisk cold sea swims. "Tardiness will not be excused" p 17. The 3-story tall "historic old house on the South Shore near Boston" p 5 is above a cliff. The "boom of the sea" p 12 "waves were sure to wake them early" p 14 "curling whitely on the rocks below" p 15. For swims, even boys wear full shoulder length black "old-fashioned bathing dress that ought to have looked very funny but somehow .. didn't" p 16 in drawings of them all.Large noses lifted snobbishly high, "splendidly dressed" p 64 Southerners seek their three slaves, hiding in the barn for the Underground Railroad. (view spoiler)["Intrepid" p 66 Eliza claims Bono's red hanky for her own, found later in an attic trunk. The children jump forward in time to warn the slaves. Ann makes it "dinnertime when they get to Canada .. when they served free dinners to all runaway slaves" p 69. (hide spoiler)]
This is a re-read, as I was reading it out loud to my 9-year-old son. I dearly love Edward Eager's books, so it was a bit painful to revisit this one and discover that it was not as good as I'd remembered it. The characterization is great (headstrong Eliza with her "leadership qualities" especially is a terrific prickly girl character, though her character arc wasn't half as satisfying or fully resolved as I'd thought), the dialogue wryly funny, the setting well described, and the premise as magical as any of the other books in the series. But a lot of the reader's enjoyment of the story will depend on their ability to recognize and appreciate American historical, cultural and literary references (which was a bit tough on my Canadian kid) and also their ability to ignore the casual racism toward North American Indians and other so-called "savages" who appear in the book ("Mom," said my son when we read the chapter about the island, "Cannibals don't just eat people randomly 'cause they taste good! They only do it like once a year!").I still get a kick out of the Natterjack, but dear heavens Edward Eager PUTTING 'H' BEFORE EVERY VOWEL IS NOT HOW A COCKNEY ACCENT WORKS. So this book is a bit tough on Anglophiles as well. I used to prefer this one to its predecessor KNIGHT'S CASTLE, which shares some of the same flaws as THE TIME GARDEN without quite as rich a setting and premise, but I think now my feelings may be leaning the other way around.
—R.J.
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 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.
—Charity
** 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 just grow like grass. It requires the right place and the right time -- Or thyme, as the case may be. For at Mrs. Whiton's house, magic grows wild as the fragrant banks of thyme in her garden. Eliza insists that time doesn't grow, it flies -- yet growing in the garden is olden time, future time, and common time. Or so says the Natterjack, the odd toadlike creature who presides over the garden and accompanies the kids on a series of perilous, hilarious, always unpredictable adventures. "Anything can happen," the Natterjack says with a wink, "when you have all the time in the world."
—Elisabeth
