100 Things I Like in 100 Icons (#001 & #002)

[thisbluespirit]

Firstly, any icons I make for this challenge will be snaggable in the usual way (unless otherwise stated). And if I'm talking about books/TV/films etc, I will try not to be spoilerish.

So, here goes... (You will soon see why I wanted to pair these two).

1. Book: Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce (1958)



"Time no longer..." murmured Tom, and thought of all the clocks in the world stopping ticking, and their striking stopped too, drowned and stopped forever by the sound of a great Trumpet. "Time no longer..." repeated Tom; and the three words began to seem full of enormous possibilities.

Both of the books in this post are now old-fashioned children's books, but both deal with time, history, time-travel, memory and dreams in unusual ways. They are both beautifully written and well worth a read at any age. Tom's Midnight Garden is very well known (here in the UK, anyway) and won the Carnegie Medal for Outstanding Writing in a Children's Book for 1958. It's harder to explain much about this book without spoiling it, but it's a lovely work, all about time and memory, friendship and loneliness, science and religion (in passing), ghosts and magic - as well as being in format one of those old-fashioned holiday adventure books, with lonely Tom away from home and discovering that his aunt and uncle's flat holds a surprising secret.

A teacher read this to us when we were ten or eleven - and had us all sitting there both holding our breath and laughing at the moment where the clock strikes 13 for the first time - and I've loved it ever since. (As a children's librarian, I've come to think of this as one of the very best children's books of the twentieth century, even though there is much competition. My childish self loved other books more, of course...)

Philippa Pearce also wrote A Dog So Small, The Way to Sattin Shore and short story collections like The Shadow Cage and A Lion at School.

(The quote is from the passage in Revelation that has been painted in the grandfather clock.)


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2. Book: A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (1939)



I smell the hot scents of the herb garden drenched in sunshine, and the perfume of the honeysuckle after rain, but stronger than these is the rich fragrance of the old house, made up of wood-smoke, haystacks, and old old age, mingled together indissolubly. All these scents and sounds are part of the story I have to tell, with light and darkness, shadows and tragedy interwoven.

A Traveller in Time (published in 1939, but set in the early 20th century) is the story of Penelope, who, like Tom, is visiting her aunt and uncle, and finds herself drifting in and out of the past, and becoming entangled with the Babington family, who used to live in Thackers in the 16th C. It's about time and memory again, this time, a place holding the memories and Penelope passing through from one time to the other, as if in dreams. The descriptions of the Derbyshire countryside are beautiful and the dreamlike, occasionally nightmarish, feel of it is something special. And, yes, that is Babington, as in Sir Antony Babington, who conspired against Queen Elizabeth and tried to rescue Mary, Queen of Scots.

Anyway, it's another one I loved from a similar age (and cried over many times, even though I was, I'm afraid, quite firmly on Elizabeth's side and rather despising of Mary.)

The peacefulness of Thackers which had held the seasons for five hundred years flowed through me, giving me strength and courage as it had done to those others, uniting me to them. I knew I had seen them for the last time on this earth, but some day I shall return to be with that brave company of shadows.

(The icon is from the sundial motto quoted at the start of the book.)

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Credits: Icon textures by tiger_tyger.

ETA: persiflage_1 and dbskyler each gave me seven subjects for a meme recently. I have decided now to make sure I included those subjects somewhere in this challenge. Indeed, most of them I already had without even thinking when I went to check! (I'm not sure about the lemons, though, but we'll see... If I can fit lemons in somewhere, I will.)

Comments

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

Tom's Midnight Garden is one of my all time favourites :))

[thisbluespirit]

:-)

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

have you ever read Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer???

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I've have. :-)

I think it would probably slot in with this category, if such a tiny and unusual little selection can be a category. Probably the Green Knowe books as well. (All the others I can think of are mainly hauntings, rather than time getting tangled up in this way.)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I recently re-read Tom's Midnight Garden, and still think it's beautiful and brilliant.

(I also adore A Dog So Small - it moved me a good deal as a child, moreso than TMG, I think.)

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I remember you talking about A Dog So Small, when it came up on Spooks. I'm not sure I've ever actually read it. I loved Tom's Midnight Garden, but I think the only other Philippa Pearce books I could actually find at my library at the time were The Shadow Cage (of which I have vague but good memories) and I think the younger reader, A Lion at School. I really wanted to read The Way to Sattin Shore, because I caught a snatch of it on Jackanory, and then never heard the rest!

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Oh, I cannot recommend it highly enough - it's a beautiful meditation on the power of a child's imagination.

[scifi-mel.livejournal.com]

Great idea for the 100 meme! :) I've not read either of these. Did the BBC do an adaptation of the traveller in time book for kids tv? Was it the one with white chalk horse in the titles? And the greensleaves theme? It sounds very familiar. Must go and read the book :)

Oh and I can't remember if I told you but in case you're interested I have a seperate book LJ I use for keeping track of everything I read. robot_mel

[thisbluespirit]

They're both well worth reading. A Traveller in Time is a little less well-known, but they're both good.

I had no idea that there had ever been a TV adaptation of Traveller in Time, but the book does use Greensleaves throughout, so I had to Google when I read your comment - and you're right! The BBC did a serial of it in 1978, with Sophie Thompson playing Penelope! (I knew they'd done Tom's Midnight Garden in the late 80s or early 90s. I'm pretty sure there's an even more recent film of it, as well.)

And, thank you. I liked it best out of the ideas I came up with, but everyone's thinking of different things.

[scifi-mel.livejournal.com]

Ah that's excellent! I remember really loving and being vaguely disturbed by the show at the same time. Have reserved a copy from our library :)

[thisbluespirit]

\o/

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

They are lovely - simple but oddly haunting :)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thank you. That's good to hear, because that was the exact intention - the ideas and those phrases (and others) from these two books have been running around my head and haunting me for over twenty years.

[clocketpatch]

I haven't read either but they both sound lovely from the descriptions and the quotes, and if they're anything like the icons you've made they must be heart-stopping gorgeous. I've snagged both and will be rearranging my icon selection presently.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thank you. And, yes, they are. :-) (I used backgrounds by tiger_tyger / tiger_tutorials who has amazing textures that work so well for quote icons.)