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Summary —
The Newbery Award-winning novel by Madeleine L’Engle tells the tale of Meg Murry, little brother Charles Wallace, and classmate Calvin O’Keefe as they travel through space and time to rescue Meg’s missing father, physicist Dr. Murry. The three children are aided by what first appear to be three witches, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, who later reveal themselves to be angelic creatures of untold age who have simply taken human form for the sake of interacting with the children. Through a folding of space/time, which the novels calls a tesseract, the three children are first taken to a planet Uriel, filled with centaur-like beings of incredible beauty, where the three ladies revel that there is a dark being who battles goodness and light, and that their father is to be found in a planet that is under the control of The Black Thing. They learn that Earth is planet that is partly covered by this dark cloud, but luminaries from Earth’s philosophers, artists, and great religious figures have all struggled against it. The three children then travel via tesseract to Camazotz in search of Dr. Murry. There, they discover a dystopian world where all inhabitants live and work in perfect harmony with the mind which controls everything on the planet and which completely stomps out all things which are not in harmony with the hive mind. At the center of the capitol is CENTRAL Central intelligence, where the three children meet a man with red eyes, a human emissary for the mind in control of the planet. Charles Wallace then allows himself to be taken over by this external force, and under its power takes Meg and Calvin to where Dr, Murry is held captive. Meg is able to rescue her father, and all of them follow Charles Wallace to meet the source of the mind control, a large disembodied brain called IT. Dr. Murry is able to tesseract with Meg and Calvin in tow, but they leave Charles Wallace behind, because ripping him out of control from IT would have done him mental harm. The three land in a neighboring planet, Ixchel, where the inhabitants are sightless, tentacle beasts who prove to be wise and welcoming of the wayward humans. One of them, which Meg calls Aunt Beast, nurtures her back to health, since she was frozen and nearly killed by the darkness which engulfs planet Camazotz. Mr. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which arrive on Ixchel and task Meg with rescuing her brother from the dark grip of IT. She comes armed with the one thing IT doesn’t have, love. Once Meg realizes that she still has her love of her little brother, she focuses on all her love for Charles Wallace, and breaks his connection with the darkness. Once Charles Wallace is free, Mrs. Whatsit tesseracts all four humans back to Earth, where Dr. Murray is reunited with his family.
Lucien’s thoughts —
This was a book that I loved reading when I was a child, and have only recently re-read for this class. Now, as an adult, I think I can explain why this book was so influential, to me and to so many others. First of all, it’s protagonist is a child who is struggling to find out who she is; Meg is beset by self-doubt and feelings of being an outsider, not quite as smart as her genius younger brother Charles Wallace nor as able to blend in as her more normal twin brothers Sandy and Dennys. She perfectly captures that awkward no-man-land that is so common a feeling at that age, beset by anger and stubbornness and a general emotional immaturity. She has started to lose the innocence of youth, but doesn’t quite yet have the maturity and self-confidence of young adulthood. She misses her father and is quite aware of the various rumors that surround his disappearance. Though rather bright, she doesn’t do very well in school, where her nonconformist ways keep getting her in trouble. She is an all-too-relatable character for a young reader, and through her, L’Engle is able to make the reader invested in the novel’s adventures to rescue her father. Later, when Meg is recovering from her brush with the darkness, she is filled with anger and resentment that Dr. Murry was unable to save her little brother, Charles Wallace. It’s obvious that some of her negative feelings are lingering effects of her contact with evil. But nevertheless, she voices the fears and frustrations that accompany readers of that age, as they are starting to have conflicts with their own parents and starting to become aware that they are flawed and imperfect human beings. Meg engages the reader, and provides a platform for L’Engle to connect with her audience. Thus we celebrate when Meg is able to take all her flaws and strength to defeat the darkness with something as simple as love for her sibling. She is able to remember the love that she has felt from all her relationships (Mother, Father, Mrs. Whatsit, Aunt Beast, etc.) and focus it on pulling back her little brother from the grips of IT. L’Engles book is a celebration of all the things that make us unique, yet still embraces our common struggle against the dark that surrounds us.
Librarian’s use —
Some of the most memorable parts of A Wrinkle in Time are the otherworldly characters introduced: the centaur creatures of Uriel, the tentacle beasts of Ixchel, the red-eyed man at CENTRAL Central intelligence, and the horrible disembodied brain IT. Ask the students to draw their favorite non-human character using the descriptions found in the text of the book. Display all the different interpretations of the creatures illustrated.
Another possible idea is to use A Wrinkle in Time to explore astronomy. Bring in illustrations of the Milky Way galaxy and other pictures of other stars; bring in charts of our own solar system. Discuss the distances involved in interplanetary travel as depicted in the novel. Discuss how it is that Mrs. Whatsit is able to tesseract across galaxies, while Dr. Murry is barely able to tesseract between neighboring planets, and how vast the differences in travel distance there is between the two. Ask the audience to consider why it is that one is able to travel so much further.
Other reviews —
A legend in time. (2007). Scholastic scope, 56 (8), 5.
Never quit doing something you love. That's the lesson Madeleine L'Engle learned after 26 publishers rejected her novel, A Wrinkle in Time (1962)… When she finally found a publisher, A Wrinkle in Time became one of the most popular young adult novels ever! Today, critics still extol L'Engle for her lovable characters and cool blend of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure… "Why does anybody tell a story?" L'Engle once asked. Answering her own question, she replied, "It has to do with faith that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically." For the millions of people who continue to fall in love with her stories, that couldn't be more true.
Livingston, N. (2003). A wrinkle in time. The reading teacher, 57 (1), 100.
This book was awarded the 1963 Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children, so it is ironic that the manuscript was rejected 26 times before it was published. The honor of the medal marked the first time in history that juvenile science fiction-in the story of three children transported from Earth to another planet-was accepted into mainstream children's literature. Written during the Cold War era of nuclear threat and the space race, A Wrinkle in Time delves into the world of space and time travel in the mid-20th century, taking the reader on a journey of the unexplored. L'Engle realistically portrays adolescent anxieties related to physical appearance, family relationships, and one's search for identity. There will always be a Meg, a Charles, or a Calvin inside every reader asking the same guestions: Do I matter? Does anyone care? In A Wrinkle in Time, they find out they are not alone in their pursuit of self-discovery.
Mattson, J. (2007) A wrinkle in time. The booklist, 103 (18), 58-59.
One need only look at lists of Newbery Medal winners in the decades prior to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time to recognize the novelty of the 1963 committee's choice. Even today, the relative scarcity of youth science fiction is reflected in more recent crops of medalists; how much more surprising, then, that the historical and realistic stories dominating the pre-1963 Newbery Medalists came to be joined by a book involving tesseracts, theoretical physics, and, perhaps most startling of all, a heroine at a time when male characters like Tom Swift were most strongly associated with children's sf…
In hindsight, it's not so difficult to imagine why the time was ripe for A Wrinkle in Time; having been released the same year as the Cuban missile crisis, and in the thick of the race to land a man on the moon, a novel that projected youngsters into space to fight a looming "Dark Thing" must have plugged directly into children's most immediate interests and concerns…
But many novels that precisely fit their moment eventually age into quaint set pieces, while Wrinkle has endured through 69 hardcover printings (and numerous paperback, audio, and audiovisual formats) to enjoy its forty-fifth anniversary this year…
Indeed, in an era of No Child Left Behind controversy, L'Engle's comments in her Newbery acceptance speech have the same timeless resonance as her fiction: "There are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin."
Its resistance to conclusions that pop fully formed from the muffin tin may be one of the secrets to A Wrinkle in Time's resilience-that, along with its perennially reassuring message about the ability of frail humans to avert doomsday. As Voiklis reflected, "Wrinkle doesn't offer answers, but I think it does offer people who are trying to understand their place in the universe a model for how to ask questions, and how to listen, and how to live joyfully in the midst of struggle."
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