Name: The Night Garden
ISBN: 9780374304522

Polly Horvath

Twelve-year-old Franny Whitekraft lives quietly with her adopted parents on a farm on Vancouver Island until the spring of 1945 when the three Madden children move in, UFOs and ghosts appear, an important military airplane disappears, and wishes made in Old Tom's forbidden night garden will hopefully get everyone out of trouble.

The Night Garden

Sarah Sammis

The Night Garden by Polly Horvath is set during WWII, near Beechey Head on Vancouver Island. It's a rural, small town area, that at the time was mostly of interest to the Canadian military as they needed to keep the coast safe from invasion.

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One garden in particular is the Night Garden. It is off limits to everyone save Old Tom (Franny's adoptive father) and the hermit who comes to garden it. It is said to have the power to grant wishes. Old Tom and Sina don't want the children wasting a wish or making one in haste as wishes can't be unwished.

That is the set up to a quiet adventure involving ghosts, the military, a UFO, and wish-making. The tone of the book is somewhat like Mary Norton's The Magic Bedknob (1943) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1943) which collectively inspired the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2018/comm...

Kim Tyo-Dickerson

I love Polly Horvath's stories. Quirky, endearing characters with hilarious asides and observations throughout, and a pace that is built around enjoying the reveal of each of her characters' motivations and unique eccentricities, like this summation of Mrs. Hornby, a local Englishwoman transplanted to the Vancouver Island setting:

"She had the square body, square jaw, short hair, and sensible clothes of women of her ilk and looked as if there would be no nonsense about her. She's the person you'd go to if you needed a sudden tourniquet or the proper rules for a croquet match (p. 155)." I laughed out loud at that "sudden" moment of levity in an otherwise leisurely portrait of the presumed stuffy Englishwoman. Horvath excels at a gentle Canadian irreverence and lighthearted poking at odd behaviors and decisions that is never mean-spirited. Always charming, like fireflies at night, a full moon rising over a secret garden, or rocking in a rocking chair as children race through the woods on a quest for hidden letters. 

The big themes of adoption and finding family are at the heart of all the Horvath novels I have read, and The Night Garden is no exception. This leisurely, loving book actually brings the painful loss of first families, the guilt of benefitting from that loss, coupled with the miraculous serendipity that brings a child to a new family for a new life together into a beautiful circle of understanding.

As an international school librarian, I would see myself reading the opening chapters out loud to my middle school students and then watching as the right reader sidles up to me afterwards asking me to take The Night Garden home with them. Grades 5 and up will appreciate this World War II historical family story and unexpected adventure.

From Newbery Honor and National Book Award–winning author Polly Horvath comes this magical middle-grade novel about a garden that grants wishes. It is World War II, and Franny and her parents, Sina and Old Tom, enjoy a quiet life on a farm on Vancouver Island. Franny writes, Sina sculpts, and Old Tom tends to their many gardens—including the ancient, mysterious night garden. Their peaceful life is interrupted when their neighbor, Crying Alice, begs Sina to watch her children while she goes to visit her husband at the military base because she suspects he’s up to no good. Soon after the children move in, letters arrive from their father that suggest he's about to do something to change their lives; and appearances from a stubborn young cook, UFOs, hermits, and ghosts only make life stranger. Can the forbidden night garden that supposedly grants everyone one wish help them all out of trouble? And if so, at what cost? The Night Garden is a poignant and hilarious story from the acclaimed children's author of Everything on a Waffle. “Horvath infuses her novel with such heart, zest, and humor in the small moments that she’s created a book her devoted fan base will cherish. Notably, the denizens of Vancouver Island have a delicious lack of separation between adult and child—all are wholeheartedly curious, beautifully flawed, and deeply amusing.” —Booklist, starred review “Events glide from the domestic to offbeat to the supernatural without any friction, creating a world where anything is possible . . . [A] story of community and love and families in all their messy glory.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review

The Night Garden

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