I feel as if I've been mysteriously drawn into the side of an airbrushed panel van. It's an experience that's both strange and somewhat thrilling. One moment I'm going about my normal day, and the next, boom! There it is, a unicorn. The sight of it is truly magical. Its glittering horn seems to shine with an otherworldly light, and its colorful mane and tail flow gently as if in a breeze that only it can feel. I can't help but stand there, gaping in awe. How did this happen? Is this some kind of dream or a strange portal to a fantastical world? The unicorn looks at me with its big, wise eyes, and I have the sense that it has some sort of message for me. But before I can even begin to fathom what that might be, the moment is gone, and I'm left standing there, wondering if it was all just my imagination.

Anecdotally, this might just be the most overlooked title within the Time Quintet. In "Wrinkle in Time," there is space travel, and in "A Wind in the Door," there is size travel. However, this particular title is the first to send its heroes hurtling through history. It is also an outstanding adventure, a story of epic proportions that has been neatly compressed into L'Engle's characteristically tight and witty word counts (excluding "An Acceptable Time"). The opening, in particular, is truly fantastic. The recitation of Patrick's Rune (assembled by L'Engle from several sources) gave me chills as a child and again as an adult. The combination of the mystic and the scientific is L'Engle's greatest asset, and she employs it to wonderful effect here. Our time machine is an alien unicorn, and the mystery is grounded in Mendel's genetics and the real-life legends of "Welsh Indians," a legend once supported by none other than Thomas Jefferson.

Especially relatable is the sense of political hopelessness that commences the book, a concern that the world has strayed too far in certain directions for life to maintain its warmth and humor. These fears are not so much alleviated as respected; the world is topsy-turvy, but in some respects, the world is also no larger than what one can directly influence within one's own community. Read it to your children or on your own; either way, it will bring pleasure.

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This is truly SO GOOD.

I had the impression that the second book, Wind in the Door, was absolutely fantastic. However, this one might just be on the next level.

It serves as a wonderful reminder that there are times when the only option is to position oneself between good and evil.

The statement "As long as the ancient harmonies were sung, the universe would not entirely lose its joy" holds a profound meaning.

It implies that there is a certain power and beauty in the ancient traditions and melodies that can bring a sense of joy and hope to the universe.

Perhaps it is through these harmonies that we can find a connection to something greater than ourselves and find the strength to stand up for what is right.

This idea adds another layer of depth to the story and makes it even more captivating.

I can't wait to see where this journey takes the characters and what other lessons they will learn along the way.

Overall, this is shaping up to be an amazing read.

The book is the third volume in a series of books.

This part can be read separately, and it is clear and does not cause any confusion. This is because the book starts with a time jump, giving the reader the space to discover the story.

The book is quite old and was reprinted in 2020. I'm not sure if the language has been changed. I'm not sure if the language has been changed. The book is a classic in literature, and I found it interesting to read.

It is a smooth and easy-to-read story. It is a strange book, but it is definitely worth reading.

4.5 stars. Re-read. Spoilers abound.

It truly amazes me that even after having re-read L'Engle's work three or four times, I can still discover new aspects to think about and learn from. This time around, the lyrical passages were a bit more challenging to get through, yet they remained no less beautiful. L'Engle has an extraordinary gift for creating remarkable characters. Although we only spend a brief time inside the minds of Madoc, Bran, Harcels, Chuck, and Matthew through Charles, their stories managed to draw me in completely.

Moreover, can we discuss the fact that Chuck and Matthew are likely two of the earliest physically challenged characters in juvenile fiction? This adds a unique and important dimension to the story. I also adored how this book gave a voice and a captivating story to Mrs. O'Keefe, a woman with several children who isn't particularly likeable. In fact, L'Engle did an outstanding job in this book, seamlessly blending history, fantasy, and time-travel. Her talent and work continue to leave me completely astounded.

I will definitely be re-reading this book again in the future to uncover even more hidden gems and gain a deeper understanding of its complex and wonderful world.

This was my favorite of the three Wrinkle in Time books.

The story was filled with adventure and excitement from start to finish. The characters were well-developed and I found myself easily connecting with them. Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin were such a great team as they journeyed through different dimensions and faced various challenges.

The author's想象力 was truly remarkable. The worlds and creatures she created were both strange and wonderful. I was constantly on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen next.

Overall, this book had everything I love in a story - interesting characters, a thrilling plot, and a touch of magic. It will always hold a special place in my heart as one of my all-time favorite books.

This is the third book in the Time Quintet series, which began with Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin.

The story commences with a significant time leap that initially left me disoriented. The events here take place a decade after the previous volume. Meg is now married to Calvin and expecting their first child. Calvin is a scientist and is currently in England. The family has gathered for a Thanksgiving dinner. Even Calvin's mother is present. When something strange occurs and the family is informed that nuclear war is a real possibility, it is Calvin's mother who assigns Charles Wallace the task of saving the future by giving him an old Irish rune, although she is not actively aware of its significance.

In order to fulfill this使命, Charles Wallace recites the rune, thereby summoning a winged unicorn named Gaudior. Together, they embark on a journey through time, being led by the wind to specific moments. Charles Wallace merges with certain characters and experiences those moments through their eyes. The objective is to change the past to ensure a peaceful future.

At first, I suspected that this book would be even more didactic than the previous volumes. However, it soon became evident that it was actually a criticism of people like the Puritans, who would have condemned a woman as a witch in their religious frenzy simply because she was different and they were, essentially, bored. This aspect gave the story a mythological quality at a certain point.

I definitely preferred this type of adventure to that of the previous book, although we had very little time with Meg or even Charles Wallace. Instead, the focus was more on the people Charles Wallace was "visiting" with Gaudior.

The writing and audio were both excellent once again. The author and narrator are both extremely talented, resulting in books of consistently high quality. What has the greatest impact on my rating, therefore, are the respective adventures. Now, I wonder how these five volumes will ultimately come together. Many of the things Meg and her brother learned in book 2 have become crucial in this third book, after book 1 laid the foundation of who (mostly) this series is about. But how will it all converge, especially after such a significant time jump?

At some point, this remarkable book ceased to be merely a physical object filled with words and pages. Instead, it transcended its earthly form and transformed into a mysterious portal, hidden away in the vast expanse of space and time. It is my absolute favorite from the captivating Time Quintet series! :)

The series has always held a special place in my heart, with its enchanting stories and thought-provoking concepts. This particular book, in all its glory, takes readers on a journey that blurs the boundaries between the real and the imagined.

Adding to the allure is the beautiful illustration by Loika (Yan Qin Weng). The detailed and imaginative artwork brings the story to life in a whole new way, allowing readers to visually immerse themselves in the奇幻 worldcreated within the pages of the book. It is truly a masterpiece that combines the power of words and art to create an unforgettable reading experience.

L'Engle is truly a remarkably gifted writer. However, it took me a significant portion of this book to fully come to the realization that it simply wasn't clicking with me. Essentially, it consists of a series of small family dramas. Sadly, I just couldn't seem to generate a great deal of enthusiasm for them. In the end, the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance, depending on ensuring that a crucial character (who never actually makes a personal appearance) has the correct ancestry. I do, nevertheless, appreciate the recurrence of what I perceive as a common theme within this series. That is, people, even those who may seem unpleasant on the surface, possess hidden depths and worth. If this book had been in the hands of a less talented writer, I would have been bored right from the start. Fortunately, L'Engle was at least competent enough to hold my attention and keep me reading all the way to the end.

It is truly an incredibly cool experience to go back and reread a cherished series from one's childhood and discover that it still holds up after all these years. I can't say for certain whether A Swiftly Tilting Planet was my absolute favorite among the A Wrinkle in Time stories when I was a child. However, there is no doubt in my mind that it is now. The complex and detailed way in which the stories are interwoven is simply remarkable. It adds a layer of depth and richness that is truly captivating. Moreover, the emotional impact that these stories have is undeniable. They have the power to touch our hearts and make us feel a whole range of emotions. I have a flat-out love for this book and I am so extremely glad that I decided to revisit it. It has brought back so many wonderful memories and has given me a new appreciation for the beauty and magic of these stories.

How amazingly interconnected everything is...

It has been a while since I last read this, and although I'm certain there is plenty that could be criticized, I still give it 5 stars, a perfect 10/10. L'Engle is truly the best. I picked up this work again due to some striking connections with a recent episode of Doctor Who (I'll discuss that in more detail soon). To my surprise, I discovered far more connections between Doctor Who's concept of time travel and L'Engle's than I had remembered. And it's not just about time travel; there's a whole philosophy of life intertwined within it.

For example, consider this exchange: "'He is a good man, that Rich,' Matthew said. 'He'd do anything in the world for Gwen.' 'You talk as though you know him.' Matthew smiled at her. 'I do. I know him through Bran. And through my novel. What happens with Rich, with Bran, with Gwen, with Zillie -- it matters to my story. It could even change it.' She looked at him questioningly. 'This book is pushing me, Zillah, making me write it. It excites me, and it drives me. In its pages, myth and matter merge. What happens in one time can make a difference in what happens in another time, far more than we realize. What Gedder does is going to make a difference, to the book, perhaps to the world. Nothing, no one, is too small to matter. What you do is going to make a difference.'"

Moreover, there's a fascinating aspect of time travel-induced brain injury where a character becomes kind of unstuck in time and is regarded as mad, in a way that is reminiscent of Hodor. I'm aware that L'Engle is widely beloved, but she might have a more subtly influential impact on contemporary science fiction and fantasy than is generally recognized. Her works seem to have laid the groundwork for many of the ideas and concepts that we see in modern SFF.

My first ever oral book report was on A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I chose it because I had truly relished the book. After all, it had a flying unicorn, which was quite enticing. I managed to score an A on the written report, but unfortunately, I didn't fare so well on the oral presentation. However, I made sure that such a thing never happened again. It was indeed what one would call "a learning experience."

I have now delved into reading (and re-reading) L'Engle's Time Quintent. Three books in, and I'm finally discerning precisely what it is that I don't like about them. The characters seem rather passive. They are constantly being shuttled from one place to another by various cosmic beings, simply because they are deemed important. But in the end, they don't actually take any real action to influence the outcome of the story. The closest we come to seeing a character do something significant is Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, when she utters the magic words "I love you" to her brother to break the spell he's under. A Swiftly Tilting Planet is, so far, the worst offender in this regard.

There will be spoilers ahead.

The world is teetering on the brink of a nuclear war, and Charles Wallace is given the task of preventing it. He has only one day to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat. One day to figure out how to convince the madman, who is about to initiate the war, to change his mind. And this madman is located on a completely different continent.

Fortunately for Charles, a unicorn appears to assist him, and his sister's mother-in-law provides him with a magical poem to recite. L'Engle leans heavily on the concept of magic words in these books. Just say the right magic words at the opportune moment, and all will be well! That's the pattern we see in Wrinkle, and it's the same in this book. Every time something bad occurs, the poem is recited, and everything miraculously improves.

Let's return to Charles and the unicorn. As it turns out, the unicorn, named Gaudior, has wings that emerge from his sides. When he's just standing around, he has no visible wings. Perhaps it's a personal prejudice, but the whole idea of the wings seems rather absurd to me. By the way, according to Gaudior, he uses his wings mainly to travel through time; he claims to be no good at flying through space.

To stop the madman, the unicorn takes Charles on a journey through time. Now, one might think that this is because Charles is supposed to alter something to prevent the madman from starting the war. But no, in reality, Charles is merely there to enter different characters' minds and observe. Maybe he'll glean some knowledge that will enable him to stop the crazy dude from blowing up the world. So, that's what we spend the majority of the book doing - traveling through time and learning the history of Crazy Dude's family.

The special, magic poem has been in the family for ages (Meg's mother-in-law is from the same family). So, for the most part, we just watch people get into precarious situations and then recite the poem to fix everything. However, evidently, a nuclear war is too enormous a problem to be solved by a poem alone. We travel along until we reach the father of the madman. What we discover along the way is that he has the wrong father. Or perhaps it's the wrong grandfather? At any rate, the wrong man married the woman, and as a result, we have a madman who wants to annihilate the world.

It transpires that the wrong man married her because he killed the other guy. The two men were vying for the woman's affections, and the bad guy stabbed the good guy and threw his body off a cliff. Charles Wallace ends up in the same time period as the two men who will fight over the woman, but is he placed in a position to affect the outcome in any way? No. He is inserted into the body of a man thousands of miles away. A man who is dying, probably of tuberculosis.

So, when the moment of the fight arrives, the man that Charles is inhabiting is in the throes of a fevered sleep. Charles, making his first attempt to effect change in the time he's in, repeatedly whispers in the man's head, "Do something." The thing is, there's no way for either of them to know that the fight on the cliff is happening at that very moment; they just do. But the sick man can't wake up, and they're thousands of miles away, so they end up doing absolutely nothing. Yet, the outcome of the fight changes anyway. The good guy turns just in time to see the other man trying to stab him, knocks the knife out of his hand, and the bad guy, in an attempt to catch his knife, falls off the cliff. So, the good guy marries the woman, and the madman is never born.

Of course, when Charles Wallace returns, no one has any knowledge of the imminent nuclear war. Only he (and Meg, to some extent) can recall what almost transpired.

Needless to say, I was extremely dissatisfied with the ending of the book. In fact, I was dissatisfied with most of the book, despite the fact that some of the historical segments were interesting. What this book reminded me of was kids playing on a playground and shouting "magic words" to win their battles against imaginary foes. So, once again, I am left with the impression that these are truly kids' books, not at all like, for example, The Chronicles of Narnia, which are books that one can revisit throughout one's lifetime.

Except that, well, beyond Wrinkle, my kids have really struggled to read these. My younger son wasn't able to progress beyond the first couple of chapters of A Wind in the Door, despite trying twice, and my daughter started Swiftly something like four times but just couldn't become interested in it. Maybe they're already too old. What I do know is that if I had re-read these before giving them to my kids to read, I wouldn't have bothered. Beyond a few concepts, like the tesseract, I haven't really found anything of great value in the books.

[Which isn't going to stop me from finishing the series, because I'm already halfway through book four (and it's even worse).]