His storytelling works in large part too because he gives us a unique situation. Auxier has crafted with undeniable care a book that dares to ask whether or not the things we wish for are the things best for us in the end. Both books involve trees and wishes and souls tied into unlawful bargains with dark sources. Kozlowsky’s little known Juniper Berry, a title that could rival this one in terms of creepiness. Just a piece of your soul.įor a time, the book this most reminded me of was M.P. And all it wants in return? Nothing you’d ever miss. A tree that can grant you your heart’s desire if you would like. And it isn’t long before both Molly and Kip discover the mysterious night gardener, who enters the house unbidden every evening, tending to a tree that seems to have a life of its own. The people who live in the hollow home appear to be both pale and drawn.

The locals avoid it and advise the kids to do so too. Indeed, the place (located deep in something called “the sour woods”) is a decrepit old mansion falling apart at the seams. When she’s hired to work as a servant at the mysterious Windsor estate she thinks the job might be too good to be true. Living without parents, Molly sees herself as her brother’s guardian and is intent upon finding a safe place for the both of them. That’s what everyone’s been telling them anyway. Molly and Kip are driving a fish cart, pulled by a horse named Galileo, to their deaths. Here we have a book that ostensibly gives us an old-fashioned tale worthy of Edgar Allan Poe, but that steeps it in a serious and thought provoking discussion of the roles of both lies and stories when you’re facing difficulties in your life. I hope I’m not giving too much away by saying that. Long story short this novel is Little Shop of Horrors meets The Secret Garden. Auxier took his whimsy, pulled out a long sharp stick, and stabbed it repeatedly in the heart and left it to die in the snow so as to give us a sublimely horrific little novel. A relatively new middle grade author, still young in the field, reading this book it’s hard to reconcile it with Auxier's previous novel Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes. And though none would contest the fact that they are creepy, only Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener has had the chutzpah to actually write, “A Scary Story” on its title pages as a kind of thoughtful dare.

Fantasy in particular has been steeped in a kind of thoughtful darkness, from The Glass Sentence and The Thickety to The Riverman and Twelve Minutes to Midnight with varying levels of success. For whatever reason, 2014 is a dark year in children’s middle grade fiction.

The night gardener book jonathan auxier