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Auxier, Jonathan.
THE NIGHT GARDENER
New York : Amulet Books, 2014
IL 5-8, RL 5.3
ISBN
141971144X

(6 booktalks)
Click on the book to read Amazon reviews
Booktalk #1

"Stories come in all different kinds.  There's tales, which are light and fluffy.  Good for a smile on a sad day.  Then you got yarns, which are showy-- yarns revel more about the teller than the story.  After that there's myths, which are stories made up by whole groups of people.  And last of all, there's legends.  Legends are different from the rest on account no one knows where they start.  Folks don't tell legends; they repeat them.  Over and again through history."  Molly is a story teller.  She and her brother have fled from the Irish famine but their parents were lost in the Irish Sea.  Now the children are alone in the world.  They have gotten jobs at a very spooky home and Molly tells her brother many stories to keep the truth from him.  But she wonders.  What is a story and what is a lie?

Booktalk #2

If you are in the mood for an old-fashioned, creepy, scary, bone-chilling twisted mystery, this book is for you. The spooky Victorian house where Molly and Kip, two Irish orphans are employed holds a deep dark secret in its "roots". Does the tall stranger with the black hat and watering can, who wanders the house at night, hold the key to this murky mystery?    (Booktalk by Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award Committee)

Booktalk #3

Two Irish orphans make their way to work at a dilapidated manor house that the locals avoid at all costs. They soon realize the house holds a terrible secret that could be far worse than living on the streets. The siblings must unravel the dark and terrifying mystery before it’s too late to escape the reach of the Night Gardener. (Booktalk by the Louisiana Young Readers' Choice Committee)

Booktalk #4

After the disappearance of their parents, fourteen-year-old Molly and her younger brother Kip are left to take care of themselves. They flee from their native Ireland during the Great Potato Famine and arrive in England, where they find themselves penniless and homeless. Desperate to find jobs and a place to live, Molly and Kip seek employment as servants at the Windsor house despite the many warnings that the local townspeople give them. Upon entering the estate, they immediately sense that something isn’t quite right. The house is eerie and dark, a creepy twisted old tree grows alongside the house, and the Windsor family is strange and unnaturally pale. Soon Molly and Kip discover that the estate is haunted by the Night Gardener, a spirit who grants wishes but also feeds off the souls of those who inhabit the house. Together, Molly and Kip must overcome the powers the spirit holds over them and come to accept the truths of their past.    (Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award DCF 2015 - 2016)

Booktalk #5

Windsor Estate, long known for its extravagant inhabitants, has called Molly and Kip into its fold as the newest housekeepers for the Windsor family.  Not long after arriving and settling into jobs, eerie happenings begin.  Who is leaving muddy footprints and leaves in the hallways, who is behind the mounds in the yard and why is that door upstairs always locked?  Was the storyteller along the road just telling them stories or was she warning them of the things to come? 
(Oklahoma Sequoyah Award, 2017)

Booktalk #6
What would you do if you thought someone was coming in to your house and controlling your actions? What if that someone was a gardener with a magic tree? Molly and Kip are Irish immigrants who are looking for work when they come to the Windsor House. All is not well in the house, but Molly is  determined to find out what is going on with the house and the tree, to protect her brother from the truth of their parents, and to find her place in the world through her stories.  (Oklahoma Sequoyah Award, 2017)


SUBJECTS:      Ghosts -- Fiction.
                        Household employees -- Fiction.
                        Brothers and sisters -- Fiction.
                        Orphans -- Fiction.
                        Storytelling -- Fiction.
                        Blessing and cursing -- Fiction.
                        Dwellings -- Fiction.
                        Horror stories.
                        Horror fiction.
                        Ghost stories.

 
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