April 8, 2010

Writers Workshop

For this weeks Writers Workshop I have chosen prompt:-

2.) What book captured your heart? Write about why the first book you loved is the first book you loved.

I was a child reader. I loved the world of Enid Blyton and read her books over and over. I loved reading about fantasy and magic and faraway places, that possibly didn't even exist.

But the book I loved and still remember the most was Tom's Midnight Garden
by Philippa Pearce. A magical story with elements of gothic and mystery...it completely blew me away when I was a child.

I loved the thought of waking in the quite of the night, when all the world is asleep, and stumbling into this magical, adventure that Tom discovers. It is about the eerie hours that don't exist in the real world...in the grown up world. Of how you just want it to be night again, so you can revisit this ghostlike place.

Haunting and surreal at times, the real magic is in the friendship that Tom makes and how this relationship transcends time and space.

It entranced me. I wanted to live in the pages of the book and visit this garden and be part of it.

I am not going to watch the movie that is based on the book as I don't want the magic that I remember as a child to be tarnished. I am going to reread this book before passing it onto my 9 year old who is a true lover of literature as am I.


10 comments:

paige said...

It's so good that you were a reader as a child. I was too and I think it's made me the avid reader I am today.

Unknown said...

I have never heard of it. I can tell I would LOVE the illustrations though. Gorgeous!

Christy said...

I've never heard of it, but I'm searching Paperback Swap now. I love children's literature. Good children's authors capture a magical feeling. An innocence and carefreeness that we seek as adults.

erica said...

I love that you want to live in the pages of a book.. I love that a book can completely enrapture someone and pull you in..

Mama the Chef said...

I haven't heard of it, but at least it wasn't the smut I read!

Green-Eyed Momster said...

Thanks for sharing this. I haven't heard of this one before. My middle daughter is always looking for good books to read. She just read a vampire book and she didn't like the ending AT ALL!

Hugs!!

Karen & Gerard Zemek said...

Sounds like a fun book! That's neat you are passing it on to your daughter.

Visiting from Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. I used the fear prompt this week.

Stef said...

I love that reading can take us from where we are into worlds that we would never in a million years be able to travel to or visit. Read on!!

Ms. G said...

Oh how funny, we were on the same wave length this week thinking about books! I loved reading as a child too and I am sorry I missed this one, it does sound like a wonderful book!

Stephanie said...

Now I feel like I need to go out and find that book! I've never read it!