"It was a dark and stormy night."

A Wrinkle in Time begins in a deceptively normal way: on a night with wind-tossed trees and a howling rain storm. From there, award-winning author Madeleine L'Engle takes readers literally to the stars and beyond in this extraordinary coming-of-age fantasy novel.

I first read about the adventures of Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin when I was eleven or twelve years old. It was during my early bookworm phase, when I was still learning there were genres that I enjoyed more than others.

I was swept up in the adventure part of this story- facing down the shadows and 'It' in my subconscious mind and heart. I remember thinking the Aunt Beast portion of the story was boring and being disappointed Meg's father was a real man with flaws rather than a superhero who could solve all of her problems.

Looking back on that interpretation now, I see my own burgeoning psychological development and the belief that my parents were some kind of godlike beings- something that most if not all children pass through at some point or another. When did you discover that your parents were real and fallible, just like you?

However, listening to the audiobook as a fully grown adult with a daughter of my own, I was struck by Meg's strength and bravery. It takes a great deal of inner resolve to face down society's expectations and the numbing experience of living soullessly every day, following someone else's school or work schedule and agenda. (A real life version of the pulsing, all-encompassing brain of L'Engle's fantasy world.)

How many days have I awoken only to race off to the hamster wheel of the work week- toiling away so the highly-paid minds of the CEOs could rest easy, knowing that the company was producing product (whatever industry that may be) and providing value for the shareholders? More than I'd care to admit, before I discovered the safe haven of the librarian's world.

In my own effort to find my calling, I was reminded of Meg's struggles to survive her encounter with It, not just survive but decide how her body and mind should function. In some ways, the modern work experience feels like someone else dictates how many breaths you should take per minute or what rhythm your heart should beat.

I had the good fortune of listening to an audiobook that has L'Engle speaking a brief introduction and then an afterword read by one of L'Engle's granddaughters.

The granddaughter (I'm embarrassed I don't remember her name) shared the details and struggles of L'Engle's life- including the rejection of her manuscript by numerous publishing houses and the shade some readers threw her way for their own interpretations of her story. Some claimed the book was too overtly Christian while others thought it promoted witchcraft. Her granddaughter said L'Engle was baffled by the hate mail.

Curious how a reader's lens of perception shapes the experience you have with a book. As I mentioned earlier, as a child I thought this book was a grand adventure. As an adult, I see it as a metaphor for living in the modern world.

I'm keen to have my own reluctant reader try this book and share what she thinks about it.

Recommended for everyone but especially those who find themselves a beat or two out of step with the proverbial Its of the modern world. This book reminds you that you're not alone.

3.5*
What a fun weird little story!

We all want to fit in somehow. We also want to be ourselves and thus stand out a little bit, but basically we don't want to deviate too much from "the norm" because it's usually considered bad by others (funny, considering that we're pretty much all feeling the same way so we should just let the others be) and especially children often have a hard time when not fitting in with their peers. Thus, being different can be risky.

Meg is a girl that doesn't fit in. Her parents are multiple PhDs and have taught her and her siblings a thing or two (about maths mostly) with the result that Meg can often not understand why she is supposed to solve a (mathematical) problem in school this way instead of that. The problem is that neither her teachers nor the other kids in school are thrilled with what her parents have already taught her and she is therefore subject to verbal bullying from both groups.
Meg has three brothers: twins (Sandy and Dennys) and Charles Wallace. The former two know how to play the game and usually don't let anything get to them. The latter is 5 years old and usually doesn't speak at all because he knows full well that his correct and adult way of speaking - to say nothing of knowing peoples' minds - would freak others out. He prefers letting them think he cannot speak and is "dumb". He's also Meg's confidant and (thanks to his ability) always knows what she and their mother need.
The children live in a house with their mother who conducts experiments in a room off the kitchen. Sadly, the childrens' father has been missing for over a year, leaving the family emotionally desperate. He worked with the government and there isn't any information the family is given by way of explanation. The cruel people of town speak about him having left for another woman, which doesn't make Meg feel any better, of course. In fact, Meg hates people for being so unfair and ignorant and she frequently grows impatient with the way things are (leading to her getting into trouble).
Thanks to her gifted brother Charles Wallace, the family encounters a peculiar old woman called Mrs. Whatsit. The following day, Meg and Charles Wallace not only meet Mrs. Whatsit's sister (Mrs. Who) but also a boy from school - a popular boy, Calvin, who nevertheless seems to have enough troubles of his own and reveals to only be popular because he is what everyone expects of him without it really being him.

To go into such detail about the children is important to me because they are the central characters. Sure, Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who are important as well and the kids meet other creatures besides them, but the author managed to truly write a story for and about children.

Anyway, at one point, the three ladies reveal to Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin that they want to help getting back Meg's and Charles Wallace's father because he is in great peril. Thus, they take them on a fantastic journey through several galaxies.

It's a tale of all your faults being necessary at the right time if you can apply them properly, of perseverance, love, and self-sacrifice. It's about the darkness in the world and that we can't simply do nothing, even if that might seem seductively easier. It's also about celebrating who you are instead of homogenizing the entire world.
Camazotz, a world the children travel to while trying to find their father, is the perfect example of what happens when everyone has to be like everybody else. Not only does it make the world grey and dull, it also does not make the people in it happy.
This is definitely a tale I'd read to my children if I had any, because it teaches so much about people, the world, perception, and looking beyond the surface. It's also about compassion and intelligence and hard lessons that all people need to learn at one point in their lives or another and the author had a wonderful way of not only delighting me when I travelled to distant planets with the children, but of also breaking my heart once or twice.

I loved the prose, I loved the author's imagination, I loved the children and everyone they encountered for the colourful worlds they inhabited and their strangeness. I loved how the interaction of light and dark was portrayed, how our way of seeing the world was challenged, and the fact that the book was filled with scientific topics, explained so children could understand them. In the introduction to my edition, the author said that the book had been rejected many times, usually because nobody could tell what it was (it was as different as its main characters) and the publishers said that children would never "get it" - to which the author commented that children usually perceive much more than adults, and her own children (demanding more writing from her) were proof enough for her to persevere. I therefore love her self-imposed high standard to make this a tale for children, about children, that nevertheless equally thrills thanks to the adventure and educates through the imbedded facts. It is rather fascinating even though there are plenty of religious themes embedded as well (though much more subtly than C.S. Lewis did in most of his books).

I have the audiobook that was read by Hope Davis and was delighted about her narration. I've listened to a number of audiobooks lately but she must be one of the top 3 narrators I've heard so far and I hope she's narrated the rest of the series as well.
Because this is a quintet and while you could technically regard this as a standalone, it literally ends in the middle of a sentence from Mrs. Whatsit which caught me by complete surprise and left me wanting more (nice touch). *lol*

I read this as a kid almost 40 years ago and just finished reading it to my 11 year old son last night. I found that the characters of Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace were great and the ideas around tesseracts captured my imagination again as they did my son. The action moves along relatively well and the ominous man with the red eyes and the disembodied brain known as IT were both great bad guys in the plot. Where I stumbled on this more mature (atheist) reading of A Wrinkle in Time is on the Christian overtones which I had completely forgotten from my reading this as a (naive Christian) kid. I would have preferred that Mrs Who, Which and Whatsit were multi-dimensional creatures rather than guardian angels, that there was more Shakespeare and less scripture quoted, and that the references to the Christian religion were less obvious towards the end. Said another way, I really enjoyed the story when it was a sorta scary "where's dad" sci-fi thriller, but came away disappointed with the morality play that it evolved into. That being said, my kid really enjoyed it and the biblical references merely bored him rather than annoyed him (he has been brought up with no imposition of religion and so far chosen not to choose one).
Perhaps a reader of this review can tell me whether the other four books of the series have the same heavy Christian moral aspect to them or not...

Am I the first living 64 year old who had never read this book- until now - March, 2017.
that is?

Random Thoughts ....
.....I was surprised to discover this story was about a little GIRL --not a WIZARD.
.....I was more surprised that Meg, 13 years old, had three other siblings... two twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys, and a younger brother, Charles Wallace Murray, who is a child prodigy.....with parents who were scientist. THERE IS A REAL FAMILY -WITH REAL PEOPLE in this book! NOT SURE WHY THIS SURPRISED ME!
.....I'm thinking "HOT DAMN, I might like this story".... and my daughters might have.... but as far as I know .... they missed reading this one too.
Heck, the first page was 'great' - the first sentence was 'classic-great': "It was a dark and stormy night".
What child doesn't perk up to hear a story with those first words?

So....I continue reading 'remembering' that not long ago 'ELLIE' praised this book SO HIGHLY ....as her FAVORITE children's book ( she and I both have passion for the Velveteen Rabbit)....that I KNEW I HAD TO FINALLY READ IT. I bought a used copy at my recycle bookstore for a dollar. THANK YOU ELLIE!!!!! :) whew...I'm glad I didn't miss this gem!!! I loved the characteristics of the kids and adults....each unique in their own ways.

.....What creative names for characters: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Witch.... 'charming supernatural neighbors'. .....as well as the lovely Aunt Beast.

The three *W* women escort Meg, Charles, and another boy, Calvin O'Keefe. from Meg's school --through the universe by means of SCI FI UNIVERSE TRANSPORTATION-- "tesseract" - A fifth dimensional phenomenon-- ET hasn't phoned home yet.....on a mission to rescue Meg and Charles father. Meg, and the Mrs. W's all agree that the mysterious disappearance of the father is very strange and has something to do with the term "tesseract". After all he is a scientist and was working on a project before his disappearance.

The Trio W-women and children travel through the universe and visit different planets - a utopian world- with creatures disguised as humans. First they bump into evil... then they are taken to a woman to look through a crystal ball. The children are learning that there is both evil and good in the world. They see much darkness through that crystal ball down here on planet earth. They also see that artist's, and philosophers, and religious folks are fighting against the evil.
AT THIS POINT IF I WERE A CHILD - I WOULD HAVE QUESTIONS --
THE CHILD ME WOULD ASK: "well, my daddy died--[I was 4]. I'd want to know if he left me because he got tired of all the fighting on earth--and since I've always wondered since the day he died -- not knowing what the hell that meant -- if he was coming back soon --- and could I go on the mission with Meg and bring my daddy back home too?" This book might have scared me as a child -- I would have needed a tender adult reading it with me.

ON WITH THIS STORY:
They soon travel to a planet called Camazotz.... where they find Meg's father: trapped!
The planet is being controlled by an evil brain and with powerful telepathic abilities- called "IT".
This story begins to gets MORE SCARY..... I would have been on the edge of my seat. Note: I don't read much science fiction - but the children are threatened by the possibility of their minds being controlled through a telepathic takeover.

Whew..... laughing ....I was exhausted by the end.....OF COURSE IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING....
I HATE that felt like crying in this children's book! I hate all you people who told me it's a must read .....because for this girl it WAS!!!!!! I LOVED IT!!! - you mean people!!!

I love believing there is GOOD in the world .. so why am I sad?


A special appreciation to the Goodreads community-- I might never have read this book without all the the LOVE & EXPRESSION for this children's classic! Thank you!

(3.5)

5+++++ Stars!!!!

“A Wrinkle in Time”. How can I never have read this before??! Have I been living under a rock my entire life?

This was utterly DELIGHTFUL, Amazing, Funny, Scary, Brilliant & Crazy Bold. In short, I loved it. Ok, and I admit, I didn’t read it. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Hope Davis - and she was amazing. That being said, thank you Madeiline L’Engle, - “A Wrinkle in TIme” was mystical, magical and nothing short of fantastical.

Thirteen year-old Meg Murry and her little brother, Charles Wallace end up going on a little trip.. (without their Mum or their siblings), to the 5th dimension. Mind you, they don’t go alone. They go with Mrs. What-Its, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Witch and a young man named Calvin. Yes, the 5th dimension exists my friends and the trip takes a mere second or two (see, I knew it!). It’s a terrifying trip, yet they go nonetheless. Why do they go you ask? To find and save Meg’s father, a scientist, who has been trapped on Camazotz for years. With help of Calvin, Mrs. What’s Its, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Witch and a friend she encounters named Aunt Beast, Meg is sent off to do the impossible.

Camazotz is an evil planet however, and Camazotz is being controlled by “IT” (not Stephen King’s “IT” mind you), and IT controls everyone and everything and if IT gets control of you, there is no getting free. Finding the strength to fight IT takes something special. It takes something that is inside of everyone who is human. Meg just has to find it.

“A Wrinkle in Time” surprised me. I didn’t have any idea how much I would love it. It was amusing, frightening, intense, intelligent, oh so magical. I simply adored it. I wanted to get to it before the movie came out in a few months and I am so glad I did. If for some reason, you are like me and have never read it, I highly recommend you either read or listen to the audiobook. You will not be sorry. A Wrinkle in Time will leave you breathless. One minute a huge smile will break out on your face, and you will be grinning from ear to ear and then next you will be clenching your teeth, scared for Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin, hoping against hope that all will turn out ok.

Published on Goodreads, Amazon and Twitter on 10.15.17.

After coming to this book with high expectations, I must say I was disappointed. Since it is hailed as something of a children's classic, I expected something more than the rather insipid fare presented. Madeline L'Engle seems to have set out to write a children's fantasy with a lot of Hard SF concepts, but have ended up with a familiar "Good-versus-Evil" story in the Christian tradition, cluttered with a lot of half-cooked scientific concepts which are never more than cursorily explained.

For example, the key concept, the "tesseract", is explained as “the fifth dimension”. The author says, through the character of Mrs. Whatsit:

"Well, the fifth dimension’s a tesseract. You add that to the other four dimensions and you can travel through space without having to go through the long way around. In other words, to put into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points."

Well, she is wrong on many counts here.

The tesseract is actually a hypothetical figure of the mathematical fourth dimension, whose “faces” consist of three dimensional cubes, the same way the faces of a normal cube consist of squares. In fact, if you square a square, you get a cube: if you square a cube in the fourth dimension, you get a tesseract. (Interestingly enough, this point is well captured by L’Engle: only, she sees the fourth dimension as time. This is Einstein’s concept, and totally independent of the mathematical fourth dimension.)

[To be fair, I have to add that although the author misses base totally with the basic concept, I found the title of the book is a nice way to describe the concept of a wormhole: however, apart from using this methodology to keep on jumping from one planet to another, this interesting topic is not developed further.]

The parents of the protagonist, Meg, are scientists. Meg is a typical “difficult” child-bad at academics and rebellious at school, but brilliant. Her parents, being scientists, can see beyond outer appearances, so they are tolerant of her faults: her teachers and society less so. When the story begins, Meg’s father is missing, ostensibly on a secret mission for the government. But all the neighbours think that he has gone off with another woman, and the snide remarks she keeps on hearing do nothing to improve Meg’s already belligerent personality. The only person who understands her is kid brother Charles Wallace, a boy who is officially a moron but endowed with psychic powers in reality.

It is into this situation, on a stormy night, that Mrs. Whatsit walks in. She, with her companions Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which (nice play on words here: Mrs. Who wears glasses and quotes from classics reminds one of a wise owl, and Mrs. Which flies on a broom and keeps on appearing and disappearing, as if by magic) are fighting against the “Darkness”, which Meg’s dad is also fighting. They whisk away Meg, Charles and neighbourhood kid Calvin across many universes and dimensions. It seems that the kids have been destined to fight the Darkness: which they do on the frightening planet Camazotz, and in true fairy tale tradition, initially lose and then win.

And that’s the story in a nutshell.

As fantasies go, this is pretty standard fare, considering the time in which it was written. However, the novelist must be commended for bringing the whole good-versus-evil battle into a wider canvas than the traditional Christian one: Einstein, Gandhi, Buddha, Da Vinci etc. are also seen as warriors of the Light along with Jesus, and the Darkness is never identified with the concept of Sin or the Devil. In fact, the description of Camazotz with its mindless inhabitants and their rigid adherence to discipline is positively chilling in its resemblance to a totalitarian regime (the nonconformist child being forced to toss the ball again and again, crying with pain at each practice… brrr!).

But ultimately, the novel fails to deliver. Meg’s father’s experimental project ends up as just a plot device. The author seemed to have started out with a lot of ideas at the outset, but seems have lost track of them as the novel progressed: in the end, only the rescue of Meg’s father and his reunion with the family is given any focus. The whole background story remains extremely inchoate. And as a fearless female protagonist, Meg does precious little except at the very end.

Still, I give the novel three stars for introducing a lot of interesting concepts to its young audience. In its time, it must have "ignited a lot of minds" (to borrow a phrase from our former President, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam) and encouraged them to travel along the adventurous trail of scientific discovery.

Enjoyable by young and old alike!

The earth is surrounded by a sinister presence - a dark, foul fog that is the tool of an ultimate evil - whose ambition is to enslave the planet with the complete removal of free will. Three magical beings, Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which - witches, angels, demigods perhaps - appear to Margaret and Charles Wallace Murry and their friend, Calvin O'Keefe, to persuade them that it is their destiny to battle this evil on its own turf and to rescue Margaret and Charles Wallace's father. Dr Murry has been missing for some months and the kids learn that he has been captured by the evil while he was "tessering", traveling time and space in the course of his scientific research.

While the writing is straightforward, well crafted and obviously aimed at a younger audience, A WRINKLE IN TIME is nonetheless a fast paced enjoyable tale of good vs evil that combines elements of science fiction, fantasy and magic even adult readers will flip through relentlessly. But there are lots of life lessons, issues and moral themes sprinkled throughout - low hanging fruit just waiting for the eager child, the observant questioning teen, the confused parent or thinking adult to pick and chew on, as it were - the coming of age realization that parents are not infallible; the cruelty of malicious gossip; God and evil; the awkwardness of romantic adolescent relationships; the potential destructiveness of pride or vanity; the marginalizing of people who are different; the enormous difficulties of selflessness; the understanding that all life's questions will not be answered; and more.

While some readers criticize A WRINKLE IN TIME as being overtly moralist, I felt somewhat differently. It was clear to me that religion and, in particular, Christian symbolism was present but I felt that L'Engle let it sit quietly just beneath the surface and the story never became even remotely preachy.

It is little wonder that A WRINKLE IN TIME has been elevated to the status of children's classic and continues to be enjoyed by adults and children alike more than 40 years after it was first published for a grateful reading world.

Paul Weiss

I read this when I was in fifth or sixth grade and I loved it. Re-reading it as an adult, I realized there was no way my eleven-or-twelve-year-old brain could have fully appreciated this masterpiece. After all, I am no Charles Wallace. Sure, the book has fantasy elements like travel through time and space, magical beings, and other worlds, but this is so much more than a children's hero tale. This is a beautiful book about love, good over evil, being different, and what happens when we realize our parents aren't perfect and we have to grow up and do things for ourselves.

A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet #1), Madeleine L'Engle

A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel written by American writer Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. It is the first book in L'Engle's Time Quintet series, which follows the Murry and O'Keefe families.

The book spawned two film adaptations, both by Disney: a 2003 television film directed by John Kent Harrison, and a 2018 theatrical film directed by Ava DuVernay.

One night, thirteen-year-old Meg Murry meets an eccentric new neighbor, Mrs. Whatsit, who refers to something called a tesseract.

She later finds out it is a scientific concept her father was working on before his mysterious disappearance.

The following day, Meg, her child genius brother Charles, and fellow schoolmate Calvin visit Mrs. Whatsit's home, where the equally strange Mrs. Who and the unseen voice of Mrs. Which promise to help Meg find and rescue her father..

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «چین دادن زمان»؛ «چینی بر زمان»؛ «سفر شگفت انگیز»؛ نویسنده: مادلین ال اینگل؛ تاریخ خوانش: روز بیست و یکم ماه سپتامبر سال 2009میلادی

عنوان: چینی بر زمان؛ نویسنده: مادلین ال اینگل؛ مترجم: صدیقه ابراهیمی (فخار)؛ بی جا، مترجم، 1371؛ در 216ص؛ موضوع داستانهای نوجوانان از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

عنوان: سفر شگفت انگیز؛ نویسنده: مادلین ال اینگل (لنگل)؛ مترجم: صدیقه ابراهیمی (فخار)؛ تهران، دستان، چاپ دوم 1381؛ در203ص؛ شابک9646555888؛

عنوان: چین دادن زمان؛ نویسنده: مادلین ال اینگل؛ مترجم: صدیقه ابراهیمی (فخار)؛ تهران، کاروان، کتابهای لوک، 1388؛ در240ص؛ شابک9789641750833؛

بـُعد پنجم همچون بعدهای: طول، عرض، ارتفاع، و زمان، بعد دیگری از دنیای ماست، اگر بـُعد پنجم را بشناسیم، میتوانیم فواصل طولانی چندین سال نوری را، در چند دقیقه میانبر بزنیم؛ خانم «چیستان (میسز واتزایت)»، «کیستان (میسز ویچ)» و «کدام (میسز هو)»، سه پیرزن عجیب، در خانه‌ ای به نام خانه ی دیوها زندگی می‌کنند؛ آنها به ظاهر ترسناک هستند، زیرا لباس‌هایی شبیه جادوگرها می‌پوشند؛ اما «چارلز» باور دارد، که آنها می‌دانند پدرش کجاست؛ در یک شب توفانی و تاریک، این سه پیرزن عجیب، همراه با «چارلز» و خواهرش «مارگریت»، و دوستشان «کالوین»، راهی سفری دور و دراز بین سیارات دوردست می‌شوند، تا پدر «چارلز» را پیدا کنند، و از آن مهم‌تر دنیا را نجات دهند؛ در داستان علمی-تخیلی حاضر شرح این سفر به تصویر واژه های خیال انگیز کشیده شده است

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 08/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 13/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی