The Night Gardener follows two abandoned Irish siblings who travel to work as servants at a creepy, crumbling English manor house. But the house and its family are not quite what they seem. Soon the children are confronted by a mysterious spectre and an ancient curse that threatens their very lives. With Auxier’s exquisite command of language, The Night Gardener is a mesmerizing read and a classic in the making.
Praise for The Night Gardener
STARRED REVIEWS
"Lots of creepiness, memorable characters, a worthy message, Auxier’s atmospheric drawings and touches of humor amid the horror make this cautionary tale one readers will not soon forget."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Storytelling and the secret desires of the heart wind together in this atmospheric novel that doubles as a ghost tale."
--School Library Journal, starred review
"Auxier achieves an ideal mix of adventure and horror, offering all of it in elegant, atmospheric language that forces the reader to slow down a bit and revel in both the high-quality plot and the storytelling itself."
--Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
"All proper scary stories require a spooky, menacing atmosphere, and Auxier (Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes) delivers the goods with his precise descriptions of the gothic setting and teasing hints of mystery and suspense."
--The Horn Book Magazine
Summer 2014 Kids' Indie Next List
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Gripping, Spooky, and Terrific
By TeacherReader
Molly and Kip are barely surviving when they are offered a job as servants at the supremely creepy, derelict Windsor estate. The people living there are pale, with sunken dark eyes. And the house is visited each evening by a mysterious "night man" who tends a strange tree. Soon Molly and Kip find themselves enmeshed in an ancient curse that threatens the lives of everyone at the Windsor estate.This book is terrific! The creepiness builds steadily until the unbelievably dark seems totally plausible. That's one reason why I typically avoid scary stories - they seem so fake that it's hard for me to buy in to them. In this case, however, Auxier has crafted a tale that is wholly believable. He does it by starting with mundane and carefully adding the creepy, ghost elements.Be warned, though, this book is not for the faint of heart. The idea of a creepy man walking around your house at night, standing over your bed, is sure to give some readers nightmares. Not to mention the collection of violent deaths and the super-creepy-soul-stealing tree.Wonderfully written, beautifully paced, and populated by a cast of richly interesting characters, The Night Gardener kept me totally glued to the page.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.A Brilliantly Haunting Story
By Mike Lewis
Every now and again when we get really lucky, we encounter a story that reminds us why there’s nothing in the world that compares to finishing a really good book. For a reading teacher it’s an essential reminder that we must do more than deliver skills to kids. We need our students to experience what it’s like to lose themselves in a story. It is with the utmost reverence that I express how Jonathan Auxier’s forthcoming title, The Night Gardener has captured the very essence of a good story’s power. It’s a tale so etherial, it made the world around me feel two dimensional in comparison.Plenty of great books keep you entertained from the first page to the last. For me, the mark of an exceptional book is how much I remember about it weeks, months, even years after I’ve finished. It’s been six months and I can still feel the story. I can picture Constance’s ring falling off of her finger and the need to put the book down for a moment so I could take in how the action of a ring hitting the floor could evoke such terror. The deep pride I felt for Molly, who could take an ordinary button, what little she has to her possession, and transformed it into a sense of security for her brother. And Kip, who’s cheery, confident, and courageous demeanor preserved Molly’s true north. It’s not just the world, and characters, and tone of the book that still resonates. With its suspenseful spookiness, vivid world, endearing characters, and expert pacing, my hunch is that this is a book that will inspire the same feelings for many, many kids.I’m thankful for The Night Gardener. It’s a story that helps us see the person that we are and the person we want to become more clear. It’s a story that uniquely conveys to middle grade readers that good and evil within the human condition is not dichotomous. But most importantly It’s a story that enthralls and entertains.So if you’ve read the book already, go out and pick up a copies for the readers in your life. I fully believe there’s no better way to engender the respect and adoration of a child than to hand them an engrossing story and The Night Gardener fits the bill. By getting this book into the hands of as many readers as possible, we can all do our part this week to tell bookstores and publishers that we want more stories like The Night Gardener in the world.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Disappointing
By Freya Shipley
I really wanted to like this novel more than I did. The premise is intriguing, and the character of the Night Gardener himself is pleasingly creepy. But try as I might, I had a hard time suspending my disbelief. Part of the reason is the dialogue. The two main characters are meant to be Irish, but the author seems to have only a generalized idea of what that sounds like. Their speech veers from Irish to Scottish to Yorkshire, with lots of very modern-sounding American thrown in. (The story is set in the Famine of the 1840s.) In general, Auxier would have done better to suggest the dialect more subtly.Molly and Kip seemed to me like lesser versions of Lizzie Rose and Parsifal in Laura Amy Schlitz's wonderful *Splendors and Glooms*. To anyone looking for a brilliant and creepy historical adventure for young readers, I'd recommend Schiltz's novel without reservation.
