The Night Gardener

 Book by Jonathan Auxier.


This Victorian ghost story is fantastic! Just the right amount of spookiness and real threat, plus surprising thematic depth. An amazing cautionary tale about being wary of someone or something that gives you what you want and tells you what you want to hear rather than giving you what you need and telling you what you need to hear. Makes you consider who or what in your life leaves you empty and feeling like you’re never enough, and who or what leaves you better and feeling more content and confident? Are any of the things you want costing you a piece of your soul? The biblical allusion to the tree branches being snakelike adds an additional, spiritual dimension of meaning.

Recommended for age 10+, depending on the level of spookiness your child is comfortable with. Three unlikeable side characters die with very little description of the deaths.

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