Ade Adepitan presents Tom's Midnight Garden Bringing Books to Life

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BELL CHIMES THE HOUR

CLOCK TICKS LOUDLY

I'm reading Tom's Midnight Garden. What a fantastic book!

Here's Tom.

Now, Tom's staying at his aunt and uncle's flat.

He's lonely, he's bored

and right now, he's lying awake in the middle of the night,

stuck listening to the crazy old grandfather clock downstairs

striking all the wrong hours as usual.

-CLOCK STRIKES

-11...

-CLOCK STRIKES

-12...

"Fancy striking midnight twice in one night," jeered Tom sleepily.

-CLOCK STRIKES

-13, proclaimed the clock

and then stopped striking.

13?

Tom's mind give a jerk. Had it really struck 13?

Of course, there is no such time as 13.

Is there?

The stillness had become an expectant one.

The house seemed to hold its breath,

the darkness pressed up to him, pressing him with a question.

(Come on, Tom. The clock has struck 13

(and what are you going to do about it?)

I'll tell you what Tom did about it.

He rushes downstairs and he checks the grandfather clock

and whilst he does this,

he opens a door he's never bothered with before.

And why would he?

It just leads out to a small yard full of rubbish and bins.

But not tonight.

Tonight, that door opens into a garden,

a huge, beautiful garden,

the type that is full of trees to climb,

places to explore, adventures to have around every corner.

And now, that garden is Tom's to visit every single night,

but only when the time is exactly right.

OWL HOOTS

Night after night, Tom spends hours and hours exploring the garden,

but when he hurries back to the flat,

it's still only a few minutes past midnight.

One night, Tom sees a fir tree fall to the ground in a massive storm,

but the next night the tree is standing again,

so is time going backwards?

And if Tom can see other people's footprints in the dew-covered grass,

why does his own feet leave no mark at all?

Time, there's never enough of it for Tom,

not when he wants to figure out the true secrets of the midnight garden

before he has to go back home again.

Why not grab a few magical hours yourself?

You could read this amazing book and, like Tom,

you could solve the mystery of the midnight garden.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd