I have one general, self-imposed rule about reviewing on this site: I write about the books I've read in the order I've finished them. By that logic, I should be cobbling together my reaction to Hunger right now but I am so taken by this childhood staple that there's no room in my brain for anything other than uncontrollable glee over this book that another Madeleine has given to the world.

I never read this book as a kid. I didn't read it as a teenager or a college student. I read it for the first time with 30 coming at me like a crazed stalker who won't let a pesky thing like a restraining order stand in the way. And that did concern me, especially after half-heartedly slogging through the first four books comprising the Narnia Chronicles a few years ago before taking an indefinite break from tackling what should have been another enthusiastically remembered staple of a young reader's diet. I was afraid that I'd completely missed out on enjoying A Wrinkle in Time, a novel that I have heard praised up and down by so many people as the prime example of how good children's literature can be.

So I read it like I read as a wee lass who didn't realize that she was poised at the very beginning of what would become a lifelong pursuit of books fueled by an insatiable need to keep reading. I read well past my bedtime with one tiny light illuminating the path to somewhere magically transportive, knowing full well that the bookworm gratification far outweighed the inevitability of being a zombie all morning. I read it when I should have been doing something else as dictated by responsibility. I read to be told a story and to consider ideas I'd never come across in the world beyond two covers, sure, but mostly I read to give myself up to a writer's lush landscape, to lose myself in someone else's words. I read it to let my imagination run free through a universe I fervently and fruitlessly wished to be a part of.

And my adult self was just as enchanted as my inner child was. Sure, A Wrinkle in Time has its faults but I honestly couldn't tell you what they are because I was so thoroughly entertained, so taken with these characters I couldn't believe I could relate to in a way that was far less remote and removed than I expected (which is to say, at all) that all the things my nitpicky, pretentious post-English-major self would usually hone in on paled in comparison to the sheer enjoyment of the rush of letting a book completely suck me into its world to the point where the real world could have collapsed around me and I wouldn't've either cared or noticed because I was so wrapped up in this story.

On one hand, yeah, I do feel a little cheated that so much of what I needed to hear as a kid has lived within these pages all this time and I could have had such imperatives by my side to ease the pains of childhood's harsh but necessary learning experiences had I just shown even a fraction of some interest in this book. Among them: One's parents are not infallible. Weaknesses can become strengths -- nay, tools integral to besting some truly harrowing obstacles -- in the right circumstances. That sometimes you have to face down scary or unpleasant truths, and you're not excused from looking away or backing down just because the task ahead is either scary or unpleasant. It's better to embrace your individuality and not compromise yourself, no matter how uncomfortable you are in your own skin, than to mindlessly submit to the herd mentality and easy conformity. Just because something appears strange doesn't make it bad -- or all that strange at its core, after all. What things are is infinitely more important than what they look like.

But conversely? This book drenched my ordinary existence with fantasy's magic for a few days, and I'm sure it'll stick with me in the days to come. My first encounter with this book wasn't a foggily but fondly recalled childhood memory that's destined to be tarnished by the darkening cynicism of the years upon revisits from my older self. I got to experience the breathless wonder of a kid discovering an instant favorite for that very first time as an oasis of sheer escapist rapture in the face of a few intense work days and the humdrum nature of routine adulthood. And it proved to me that I don't always have to be such a goddamn snob about kid lit because when it's good, it is extraordinary. (And, really, let's be honest: Younger Me wasn't exactly the sharpest crayon in the tool shed, so who's to say I would have picked up on the more subtle elements that made this such a delightful read, anyway?)

Despite my natural inclination toward hyperbole, I am not exaggerating when I say I'm a little better for having read this book, one that I initially arrived at out of dubious curiosity and left in a state of giddy, childlike awe. And maybe a few tears.

“We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.”

I read A Wrinkle in Time in grade school, 35-40 years ago. I remember really liking it, but none of the details. So, with the movie coming out, I decided to give it a re-read.

A Wrinkle in Time has the kernels of a lot of different ideas, scientific and religious, even if none are dealt with very deeply. I also thought the ending was pretty abrupt. But I think it works well as a book for gifted kids about gifted kids. And as a bonus, it’s got to be the best novel ever written that actually begins “It was a dark and stormy night.” Recommended for young readers.

Wow! I never imagine to read this book for the first time when I’m in my 40s. For years I let the book get lost in my chubby TBR that keeps growing at each day. Probably it stuck with piles of books and I wouldn’t remember to read it if Ted Lasso wouldn’t give this book to Roy Kent! If a book can heal one of the grumpiest fictional characters’ soul, it may surely help me, too. At least that’s what I thought before I started.

Overall: I loved the classic theme: three children’s teaming up for fighting against evil darkness threatening the universe.

I liked how 13 years old Meg portrayed and little, enigmatic brother Charles. As their fellow schoolmate Calvin joins them with the guidance of their weird neighbors with weirder names Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Witch, two children’s search for missing father turns into a visit to fifth dimension to confront with the universal threat!

Yeap, I enjoyed it a lot and I’m so happy to skip the movie adaptations! I wish I read it sooner but better late than never!

Here are my favorite quotes:

“Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit”

“We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts.”

“The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly “

“A book, too, can be a star, “explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,” a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

Madeleine L’Engle started writing this book the year I was born, and I think it has fared a bit better than me

About: A Wrinkle in Time is a children’s science fiction written by Madeleine L’Engle. It was published on 3/15/1973 by Yearling Books, paperback, 211 pages. The genres are children’s, science fiction, and fantasy. This book is intended for readers ages 10 to 14. This book belongs to a series of 5 books.

My Experience: I started reading A Wrinkle in Time on 3/13/18 and finished it on 3/16/18. This book is fantastic! I love the characters! They all have unique personalities. I like the twin’s good sense of humor. I like their easy going intelligent parents and the oddities of Meg and Charles Wallace. I like that despite the characters being super smart, that they seem to have a disability in others. Charles Wallace is a genius but he didn’t speak until he was 4 years old. Meg is excellent at math but she is a trouble student at school. It’s a good reminder that even geniuses are still not perfect. I read this book to watch the remake of A Wrinkle in Time. I have seen the old version of the movie years ago and some events came back to me as I read this book.

This book is told in the third person point of view following Margaret (Meg) Murry as she experiences one of the lowest days of her life. Her grades are suffering, the mean girls at school are saying she’s acting like a baby, and she has gotten herself into a fight to protect her youngest brother, Charles Wallace though her middle twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys weren’t appreciative of her efforts. Now the storm is scaring her. The storm brought in one of their new strange neighbors, Mrs. Whatsit. To Meg and her mom’s surprise, Charles Wallace already gotten acquainted with the new neighbor. Mrs. Whatsit said a tesseract is real and it brought on a whole new adventure for Meg and Charles Wallace. This adventure involves rescuing their father, a renowned physicist. With the help of Mrs. Whatsit and her two friends Mrs.Which and Mrs. Who and Meg’s classmate, Calvin, they were able to travel by tesser to far away planets.

A well written story, this book is full of adventures and wholesome characters for readers. I love the illustrations in this book that explains how traveling through tesser works. I like the mathematical references and the mentioning of Einstein. I like how Meg’s dad spent time to teach Meg math shortcuts and the periodic table of elements. I like Charles Wallace and his interest in higher learning at such a young age. I like the glimpse of Camazotz’s citizens, how everyone doing the same thing in a rhythmic motion. This book has a good family dynamic and the curiosity of the mind and I highly recommend everyone to read this book!

Pro: fast paced, page turner, easy to read, family oriented, other planets,

Con: none

I rate it 5 stars!

***Disclaimer: I borrowed this book from my local public library and my opinions are honest.

xoxo,
Jasmine at www.howusefulitis.wordpress.com for more details

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...

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

3.5 Stars

Anthem by Ayn Rand is one of my favorite books, and I feel like this is the perfect kid-friendly version of that.

I've been going back and reading a lot of children's classics I neglected to read as a kid, and I think they're fascinating. I see how they appeal to young readers, and I can predict how much I would have loved it as a kid, but I also catch really deep themes and allusions that I know I never would have understood as a child. This book makes so many Shakespeare references and includes such a mature discussion about conformity and knowledge, and I think it's a priceless success if a book can be compelling for readers of all ages.

That being said, the only enjoyable part of this book I found was only the middle bulk. I didn't attain a particular attachment to any of the characters, and the writing style felt cozy but average. Until we arrived at the discussion about that dystopian planet around page 100, the book felt a bit aimless. I don't anticipate I'll read the rest of this series--sci-fi isn't my thing--but I did really enjoy the plot of this when we finally got to the good stuff.

"It was a dark and stormy night."

It was four-star stuff but the ending ruined it a bit - the part where Meg defeats IT by love. Why do people keep feeding this love-conquers-all nonsense to their children? Harry Potter, Doctor Who and now this. Love doesn't conquer anything, you need guns. In fact, I agree with Sherlock Holmes on this one - love is a serious disadvantage and sentiment is a chemical weakness found in losing side.

Wow. So utterly profound and beautiful. A book with a message that will stay with me forever... To choose love over fear and to remember that I am loved. That love is the greatest gift of all. That it has the power to save me and deliver me from darkness.


...At the end, even Meg.

The story takes about 100 pages of tedious, banal dialogue, to get to the point where you are told that this is a battle against Evil, and all you need is love. But everything is so oversimplified, so sketchy--everything is reduced to big words, like IT, and evil. This IT, also called the Dark Thing, is striving to create a communist-type society where everyone conforms, down to the little children who bounce their balls in uniform rhythms and who live in cutter-box houses.

I liked Meg in the beginning, she was a believable character, filled with her own problems, and I really wanted for things to work out for her. But when she went on her journey, and especially since she got to that dreadful communist planet, she got hysterical. She did not “say” anything for half of the book--she yelled, gasped, screamed, cried, etc. She got ticked off at everyone for everything.

Then there might have been an indication that Charles Wallace was going to be a player, but he fizzled. There are constant references to him being special, but we never find out what was so special about him, besides putting a 30 year old into a 4 year old body and calling it “genius”. There was all this build-up for the confrontation between him and IT, but nothing happened. He looked at the guy, let him in, and became filled with ideas from Lenin himself.

Then there are worlds. These characters traveled to a planet that was described in three lines with beautiful flowers and a tall mountain. Then another planet is not described at all except to say that it was a winter wonderland type of a place. The residence of the Happy Medium was another planet where they were conveniently in a cave, and final stop was in a planet that was probably like Earth, except all we know about it is that it had rows of houses and tall buildings. There you have it--traveled all through the known Universe and have nothing to show for it. No imagination to describe and develop a world.

Then there are bizarre references to god/s that come out of nowhere, or in the oddest places, and disappear into nowhere. Characters are underdeveloped; scenes are not finished; worlds are left to themselves; theme is the fear of religious right of the communist left.

It's a caricature of evil, done perhaps in the belief that kids won't get it otherwise. There's not much in terms of a plot, the worlds described are paper-thin, and it shows no historical understanding, no outside knowledge.


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Book Details:

Title A Wrinkle in Time (Time #1)
Author Madeleine L'Engle
Reviewed By Purplycookie