Edward Eager – författare

It all begins with a strange coin on a sun-warmed sidewalk.      Jane finds the coin, and becasue she and her sblings are having the worst, most dreadfully boring summer ever, she idly wishes something exciting would happen.      And something does: Her wish is granted.      Or not quite. Only half of her wish comes true.      It turns out the coin grants wishes—but only by half, so that you must wish for twice as much as you want.      Wishing for two times some things is a cinch, but other doubled wishes only cause twice as much trouble. What is half of twice a talking cat? Or to be half-again twice not-here? And how do you double your most heartfelt wish, the one you care about so much it has to be perfect?

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."