The Time Garden

Read this book as a child, have just re-read as woman in her 70s. I love it just as much now as I ever did. Edward Eager's "Half Magic" is first of his books I read long ago - but for me The Time Garden is even better.The children of the story are well-characterised. (Some reminiscences of C S Lewis's Narnia series eg in Lewis's series, a girl character loses interest in the magic and in Narnia as more interested in clothes, teenage stuff. In a similar way, one of the 2 boys, Jack, sniffs at the magic as he is more interested in teenage girls. However he does accompany the others on one or two magic journeyings.

This story brings history alive with its own special magic. A good gift for an imaginative child!

Lively full of fun story. I loved it as a child and recently re-read it as an adult and I wasn't disappointed.

Very pleased

I discovered Eager's "Magic" series when I was about ten years old, circa 1961, and was entranced. No need to go into the plots here, because others have done so better than I could. Whenever the children travel back in time, the books are historically accurate, but the history is fun. It filled almost every need I had at that age - adventure, curious circumstances, magic only children could be a part of, friendships (down to the children sometimes chastising one another for being stuck up), travel, and as always, a happy ending. The illustrations by N. M. Bodecker likewise gave me what I wanted - a sense of what everything looked like, but not so much that I couldn't use my imagination too. I love that the illustrations are in black and white, and they have a lot of movement to them.I'd recommend this series to anyone with a young child. It's fun, easy to follow, just "grown up" enough to satisfy. Also a good read-aloud.