Tom's Midnight Garden by Philipa Pearce, 1958

Let your imagination soar into your own midnight garden

Tom, quarantined from his brother's measles and sent off to relatives, faces several weeks in a house converted into flats with no other kids, no playground and nothing at all for a boy of his age to do. A grandfather clock that tells the correct time but clangs different hours stands in the hallway of the house. One night, when the clock chimes a mysterious thirteenth hour, Tom goes down to investigate. What he finds is an entirely different house with rich decorations and carpeting. And, behind the back door that in the daytime gives out to an alley, is his fondest wish - a vast garden to play in and a friend with whom to explore every tree and hedge and even the meadow and river beyond. Time is the great mystery in this book. For Tom only 24 hours may have gone by since his last visit but seasons have passed in the garden. As for his friend, a girl named Hatty, sometimes she appears younger than he is and sometimes, she is almost an adult. And while he may spend a whole day in the garden, the grandfather clock shows that he only spent a few minutes out the door. As with all good stories, the reader is not only immersed in the mystery and the enjoyment while reading, her imagination is stirred. And who knows what kind of concoction boils up when that happens? Oh to find one's own secret garden and a good friend behind a seemingly mundane door! This book is not only for children but for adults as well. I would translate Tom's adventures to Zoe's Mid-afternoon Caribbean Cabana in which a cubicle-dwelling computer programmer enters a supplies closet in that hazy time between lunch and tea and finds a white sand beach, a hammock, a chick-lit novel and a cold, umbrella-decorated cocktail.