The Time Garden — Edward Eager

Time and again, the children from Knight's Castle have longed for another magic adventure. But you can't find magic just anywhere. It doesn't just grow like grass. It requires the right place and the right time --

Or thyme, as the case may be.

For at Mrs. Whiton's house, magic grows wild as the fragrant banks of thyme in her garden. Eliza insists that time doesn't grow, it flies -- yet growing in the garden is olden time, future time, and common time. Or so says the Natterjack, the odd toadlike creature who presides over the garden and accompanies the kids on a series of perilous, hilarious, always unpredictable adventures. "Anything can happen," the Natterjack says with a wink, "when you have all the time in the world."