A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."

A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.

A Wrinkle in Time is the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal.

Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government.

My thoughts:
I loved this book in fourth grade when I read it. It really grabbed my imagination so I couldn't wait to share it with my own children.  This audio book was read by the author, which I usually really like, but this time I didn't.  L'Engle just didn't bring it to life the same way as I recall it when I read it on my own.  At first I thought it was because I am now an adult and am seeing and experiencing it from a different point in my life, but my husbands comment was that the her voice was grating(it was) and that she sometimes mispronounced words (which I had noticed as well).  I worried the whole time that the audio version as going to ruin it for my children, but they really got into it and seemed to enjoy it.  We found a movie version on Netflix, but only my oldest sat through it.  They watched in later in the day after my husband and I had run our first half marathon, so we weren't really in the right frame of mind to watch it with them.  We both kind of wanted to sit and relax after the experience.

Meg, Charles Wallace, Calvin O'Keefe and Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Which go on an adventure through a wrinkle in time to save Mr. Murry.  I think L'Engle's reading made Meg seem whinier than I recall her and made her character less likable, but I can see that my older children asking to pick up the copy of the book that we own and reading it on their own.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780312367541
• Publisher: Square Fish
• Publication date: 5/1/2007
• Pages: 245
• Age range: 11 - 15 Years
• Series:Time Quintet Series , #1

Meet the Author

More by this Author

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Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007) was born in New York City and attended Smith College. She wrote more than 60 books, the most famous of which is A Wrinkle In Time (1962), winner of the Newbery Award in 1963. L’Engle continued the story of the Murry family from A Wrinkle In Time with seven other novels (five of which are available as A Wrinkle In Time Quintent from Square Fish). She also wrote the famous series featuring the Austin family, beginning with the novel Meet The Austins (1960). L’Engle revisited the Austins four more times over the next three decades, concluding with Troubling a Star in 1994. The story of the Austins had some autobiographical elements, mirroring Madeleine’s life and the life of her family. Madeleine L’Engle’s last book, The Joys of Love, is a romantic, coming-of-age story she wrote back in the 1940s, and is being published by FSG.