A Wrinkle in Time By:Madeleine L'Engle

This is an old book: copyright 1962. I bought it at Half Price Books. It was the first book by this author that I have ever read. I had heard about her at a writer’s retreat that I attended at Laity Lodge in Leakey, Texas. I definitely will be reading more of her work. This is the first book in a series of five that she wrote. The other books in this series include A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters and An Acceptable Time. If purchased together, these are referred to Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet.

I highly recommend both this book and an opportunity to attend a retreat at Laity Lodge.

Madeleine L’Engle performs a brilliant mix of science fiction and Christianity in A Wrinkle in Time, using the Murry family as the main characters in this wonderful story. Normally, I have no interest in science fiction at all, but I think that the way that L’Engle fuses Christianity into the picture is unique and refreshing. The overall theme is the triumph of love over evil, which is not common in a science fiction story. Two of the children in this family join with some other characters to rescue their father. Some of these other characters morph into unusual forms.

When reading of the unusual forms that some of the characters take, I am reminded of John’s vision in the book of Revelations. In this book, some descriptions are made that are reminiscent of science fiction as well. The reminder of Revelations helps me to realize that some of the forms of beings into which some of these characters morph is maybe not so unbelievable at all.

L’Engle won The Newbery Award for this book, which is considered to be for children or young adults. I thought that it is a shame that it has been limited to this category because there is too much to be enjoyed in her writing from all audiences.

Since it was listed in the children and youth category, I decided that it would be a good book to explore with my children and started reading it to my eleven year old last night. I read the first chapter that ended with a concept called “tesseract”. I told my son that we would read the next chapter tomorrow. He pitched a fit, wanting to know what “tesseract” meant. I told him that he would have to wait for the rest of the story. He didn’t want to wait. He begged me to keep reading. I think that I can describe no better recommendation than this.

If you want to know what "tesseract" means, I recommend that you too get this book. You won’t be disappointed…