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