The Time Garden

Edward Eager

HarperCollins, Mar 31, 1999 - Juvenile Fiction - 224 pages

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."

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - PollyMoore3 - LibraryThing

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 ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - kaitanya64 - LibraryThing

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 ...

Contents

• 1 All the Time in the World: 1
• 2 Wild Time: 23
• 3 Time Will Tell: 49
• 4 All in Good Time: 81
• 5 Common Time: 113
• 6 Time Out of Mind: 135
• 7 The Last Time?: 160
• 8 The Time Is Ripe: 185
• Back Matter: 203
• Inside Back Cover: 205
• Back Cover: 206
• Spine: 207

About the author

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, Fritz, that he began writing children’s stories. His classic Tales of Magic series started with the best-selling Half Magic, published in 1954. 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 who likes my books and doesn’t know hers may be led back to the master of us all.”

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Time Garden; Volume 4 of Tales of Magic
• Author: Edward Eager
• Illustrated by: N. M. Bodecker
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 1999
• ISBN: 0547545789, 9780547545783
• Length: 224 pages
• Subjects: Juvenile Fiction / Classics; Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic; Juvenile Fiction / Humorous Stories