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A Wrinkle in Time (Paperback)
by Madeleine L'Engle
| Category:
Adventure, Story, Award-winning Books, Ages 9 -12, Children's books |
| Market price: ¥ 88.00
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¥ 78.00
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A Wrinkle in Time shows that all people have to preserver to get though those hard times. Depending on whether you’re scared or something's to difficult, you always need to break through those challenges. |
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Author: Madeleine L'Engle
Publisher: Yearling
Pub. in: March, 1973
ISBN: 0440498058
Pages: 256
Measurements: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00018
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- Awards & Credential -
A well-loved classic and 1963 Newbery Medal winner |
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- MSL Picks -
Everyone in town thinks Meg Murry is volatile and dull-witted, and that her younger brother, Charles Wallace, is dumb. People are also saying that their physicist father has run off and left their brilliant scientist mother. Spurred on by these rumors and an unearthly stranger, the tesseract-touting Mrs Whatsit, Meg and Charles Wallace and their new friend Calvin O'Keefe embark on a perilous quest through space to find their father. In doing so, they must travel behind the shadow of an evil power that is darkening the cosmos, one planet at a time. This is no superhero tale, nor is it science fiction, although it shares elements of both. The travelers must rely on their individual and collective strengths, delving deep within themselves to find answers.
A well-loved classic and 1963 Newbery Medal winner, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is sophisticated in concept yet warm in tone, with mystery and love coursing through its pages. Meg's shattering, yet ultimately freeing, discovery that her father is not omnipotent provides a satisfying coming-of-age element. Readers will feel a sense of power as they travel with these three children, challenging concepts of time, space, and the triumph of good over evil. The companion books in the Time quartet, continuing the adventures of the Murry family, are A Wind in the Door; A Swiftly Tilting Planet , which won the American Book Award; and Many Waters. Every young reader should experience L'Engle's captivating, occasionally life-changing contributions to children's literature.
Target readers:
Kids aged up 8
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In the beginning of her writing career, Madeleine L'Engle, the author of over 40 books for young people, found it difficult to get published. But when Farrar Straus & Giroux decided to publish the now-classic A WRINKLE IN TIME, which had already been turned down by several publishers, they were richly rewarded. In 1963 A WRINKLE IN TIME won the Newbery Medal and went on to become a perennial favorite with children and adults alike.
Utilizing Christian theology as a framework to explore the nature between good and evil and the necessity of basic human values, L'Engle asks big questions about personal responsibility, integrity, the dangers of mindless conformity, faith, and the possibility of life in other universes. She writes, "One physicist says that the big question is: are we alone in the universe or not?" The very thought of life in other universes propels L'Engle to explore that great macrocosm beyond us.
In addition to her science fiction and fantasy novels about time travel, L'Engle writes coming-of-age, suspense and mystery novels for teens, mainstream adult novels, poetry, and plays. Considered one of America's foremost creators of fantasy and science fiction, she was awarded the 1998 Margaret A. Edwards Award, honoring her lifetime contributions to the YA genre.
Now 82, L'Engle's talent and search for truth remains undiminished. She continues to write fiction and nonfiction that fires the intellect of people both young and old. Taken together, her sophisticated, yet accessible body of work forms a complex tapestry of what it means to stake one's life for truth.
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This special edition of A Wrinkle in Time includes a new essay that explores the science behind the fantasy.
Rediscover one of the most beloved children's books of all time: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle:
Meg Murray, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a "tesseract," which, if you didn't know, is a wrinkle in time.
Meg's father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father?
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From the Introduction to A Wrinkle in Time
A Stardust Journey with A Wrinkle in Time
By Lisa Sonne
A Wrinkle in Time was written before any human had walked on the moon or sent rovers to Mars. It was a time before cell phones and personal computers, before digital cameras, CDs, and DVDs, before the fiction of Star Trek, Star Wars, and The Matrix, and before the realities of the space shuttle, the Mir space station, and the International Space Station. Science has changed dramatically as generations of children and adults have read the book since it was first published in 1962. Those scientific advances make Madeleine L'Engle's story even more compelling.
The author of A Wrinkle in Time is a tall woman who sometimes wears a purple cape. She will tell you that she is completely made of stardust and always has been. No kidding. "You are made of stardust, too," she will add with a twinkle in her eye.
This is not the wild imagination of a creative writer's mind. We are all made of stardust. Our little molecules are the leftovers of big stars that exploded eons ago. Mrs. Whatsit may be a fanciful character who gave up her life as a star to fight the darkness, but we are real creatures who really are made of the cosmic dust of supernovas. When giant stars explode, they send their matter out into the universe and enrich all the yet-to-be-born stars and planets with the chemical ingredients that make up life as we know it. Astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "It's a profound, underappreciated truth."
Stardust is just one way that Madeleine L'Engle mixes fact and fantasy to inspire you to want to know more about science. With knowledge come more questions. With imagination comes more curiosity. With searching comes more truth. That blend is a specialty of L'Engle's.
Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin visit different planets outside our solar system. When A Wrinkle in Time was first printed in 1962, scientists could confirm the existence of only nine planets-all of them orbiting our sun. Since 1995, astronomers have been finding planets at an average rate of one a month-all outside our solar system.
Throughout A Wrinkle in Time, the universe is in a struggle with the Black Thing. L'Engle wrote of the Black Thing before astronomers found black holes, which suck up everything around them, and long before scientists announced that almost our entire universe is composed of invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy," which science knows almost nothing about.
In the thin atmosphere of Uriel, Meg has to breathe from a flower to stay alive. In reality, we all breathe plants to stay alive. NASA conducts experiments to see how plants could help keep astronauts alive when they travel in space and live on other planets.
In A Wrinkle in Time, we meet thinking aliens in outer space, including Aunt Beast, the Man with Red Eyes, and Mrs. Who. Since 1962, explorers have gone to remote spots on our planet, studying "extremophile" life to learn more about what life out there in space might really be like.
Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin travel through multiple dimensions. When A Wrinkle in Time first appeared, science recognized only four dimensions–three of space and one of time. Now mathematicians claim that at least nine spatial dimensions are needed to explain our physical world–maybe ten. Maybe more.
Just looking at how technology and science have changed since Meg's first adventure was printed is a kind of time travel in your mind that shows how much science and math have grown, and how much they still need to grow. When Meg's father urges her to name the elements of the periodic table to escape the dark forces of IT, she begins reciting, "Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine . . ." and continues. Only 103 elements were known in 1962. In 2004, to finish reciting the elements on the periodic table, Meg would need to add more tongue-twisters, such as rutherfordium, meitnerium, darmstadtium, and roentgenium (element number 111). New elements are still being discovered, created, and debated.
Scientists and astronauts are delving further into the tiny world of microorganisms that Meg's mother studied, and further into the giant realms that Meg's father traveled in. Since 1962, scientists have discovered quarks and quasars, things smaller and bigger than ever known before-smaller than a proton in an atom and larger than a galaxy. What next?
"Students can get so bombarded in science classes and think that all is known. It's not. A book like this can help them realize that we know some things, but really very, very little. And maybe a lot of what we know now is not right!" says Shannon Lucid, a science fiction reader and astronaut who has spent more time in space than any other woman. There are still big unanswered questions and great quests yet to begin.
For Madeleine L'Engle, every good story and every good life is a search for answers through fiction, fact, and spirit. The poet, the physicist, and the prophet are all searching to understand the dimensions we can't see, whether gravity, time, or love. A Wrinkle in Time is a great journey through dimensions-a journey of exploration and discovery, curiosity and awe.
From A Wrinkle In Time
"Now, don't be frightened, loves," Mrs. Whatsit said. Her plump little body began to shimmer, to quiver, to shift. The wild colors of her clothes became muted, whitened. The pudding-bag shape stretched, lengthened, merged. And suddenly before the children was a creature more beautiful than any Meg had even imagined, and the beauty lay in far more than the outward description. Outwardly Mrs. Whatsit was surely no longer a Mrs. Whatsit. She was a marble-white body with powerful flanks, something like a horse but at the same time completely unlike a horse, for from the magnificently modeled back sprang a nobly formed torso, arms, and a head resembling a man's, but a man with a perfection of dignity and virtue, an exaltation of joy such as Meg had never before seen. No, she thought, it's not like a Greek centaur. Not in the least.
From the shoulders slowly a pair of wings unfolded, wings made of rainbows, of light upon water, of poetry.
Calvin fell to his knees.
"No," Mrs. Whatsit said, though her voice was not Mrs. Whatsit's voice. "Not to me, Calvin. Never to me. Stand up."
"Ccarrry themm," Mrs. Which commanded.
With a gesture both delicate and strong Mrs. Whatsit knelt in front of the children, stretching her wings wide and holding them steady, but quivering. "Onto my back, now," the new voice said.
The children took hesitant steps toward the beautiful creature.
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Orrin C., USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
The phenomenal success of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books (see Orrin's review)-the first two are currently both in the Top 10 of most Bestseller Lists-lead me to reread this Children's Classic, which was one of the big favorites of our generation. I must have read it around fifth grade-I imagine most every kid in America reads it at some point-and no one will be surprised to hear, it turns out I wasn't as smart as I thought I was when I was ten. Madeleine L'Engle managed to hoodwink me, but good. I thought this was just a great Science Fiction/Fantasy story, but now I discover that the whole book is a religious allegory.
Meg Murry and her brothers, Charles Wallace and the twins, live with their mother. Their Father has been missing for years, supposedly working on a top secret government project. Meg and Charles Wallace are strange children; no one seems to know quite whether they are idiots or geniuses. In short order they meet Calvin, a tall gangly boy, who also feels like a misfit and three women who have moved into an abandoned house in the neighborhood. The old women, Mrs. Whatsit , Mrs. Which & Mrs. Who, inform the children that Mr. Murry is in dire straits and needs their help. They travel through time and space via wrinkles, called tesseracts, to the planet Camazotz, where Mr. Murry has gone to battle the forces of darkness that are closing sections of the universe in shadow. There they battle the evil being known as IT, a disembodied brain who offers people complete security if they will only give up their freedom and their individuality, as have the inhabitants of Camazotz.
Most of the allegorical stuff is easy enough to see, the children can fight evil by finding The Father. Meg despairs that evil is allowed to exist at all and blames her father, and so on. But I really liked the fact that L'Engle portrays Camazotz (or Hell) as a place where there is complete conformity and security, but no personal freedom. Personally, I believe that Camazotz closely resembles both a Socialist or Communist State and the Garden of Eden. Just as the great struggle of Ms L "Engle's time was the fight for freedom against the security of Socialism/Communism, Man chose to leave the security of a pastoral existence in the Garden and accept the vicissitudes of life without because we prefer freedom.
The book also contains one of the most beautiful descriptions of human life that I've ever heard. Mrs. Whatsit compares life to a sonnet:
It is a very strict form of poetry is it not?
There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?
And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?
Calvin: You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?
Yes. You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.
This book conveys a worthwhile religion political lesson about the human condition and is great fun besides. I look forward to reading it with my kids.
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Joanna Daneman , USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
This is a children's book, but it isn't just an adventure story.
It has science-fiction; The Drs. Murray, parents of Meg, Charles Wallace and the twins) are scientists who are researching Time and Space. Dr. Murray takes a time trip and so do the kids.
There is also magic; a trio of "witches" shows up-Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, and they take Meg, her brother Charles-Wallace, and their new friend Calvin on an epic adventure.
It's also the story of a family with a deep trouble who nonetheless stay together, the story of a young girl who is just coming into adolescence with all the awkwardness and confusing feelings, and the story of a special little boy who is thought to be retarded by townspeople.
The symbology L'Engel uses is powerful and original; a giant brain who seduces those around it into surrendering their free will as an ultimate dictator; a shadow-like smog around planets that represents the presence of Evil, and a special young boy who is more than a genius; who is "something new" who nonetheless can be tempted to his own destruction by vanity.
Wrinkle in Time has a lot of fertile subjects for discussions between parents and children about good, evil, how we treat each other, and the choices we make. Ms. L'Engel often uses moral themes in her books and this one contains excellent subjects for discussions about kindness, good, evil, God, and being different, and about the destructiveness of gossip.
Wrinke in Time is like the Potter books in that it is about boys and girls in a magical or fantasy setting. It is unlike the Potter books because it does not focus on wizardry as a craft. Instead it presents the universe as full of wonder, and united by a titanic struggle of Good against Evil. Like the Potter books, there are sequels to Wrinkle in Time, and the story of the Murray kids continues. This was hands-down my favorite book as a child. I still have my copy almost 40 years later.
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Ashley Pocklington, USA
<2006-12-21 00:00>
A Wrinkle in Time is a delightful science fiction, fantasy novel that revolves around three main characters: Meg Murry, Calvin, and Charles. Meg is a twelve-year old girl who doesn't think much of herself and does poor in school except in the areas of math and science. Calvin is a bright fourteen-year old teenage boy who is very popular at school and is great at sports. Charles is Meg's five-year old brother who most people think is stupid but Charles has extraordinary powers to know what others are thinking in their minds. Throughout the story, the children travel through time and distant planets facing good and evil to try to rescue their father who has been captured and held prisoner by an evil force named "It" on a planet called Camazotz. "It" is a creature described as being a living brain without a body that can control all of ones thoughts and actions. It is finally through the power of love that Meg destroys the creature and saves her father.
I feel this novel was not only influential to me, but many of us could also relate to the character Meg. Meg believed that she was neither smart nor pretty and what she finds out through the wrinkle is that she knows more than she thinks Meg just needs to have more confidence in herself.
Before I read this novel, I really didn't think it would be interesting or exciting in anyway. The only reason why I read it was because my teacher wanted me to; however, at the end of reading this novel my opinion changed and I thought it was a really interesting with many details.
A Wrinkle in Time shows that all people have to preserver to get though those hard times. Depending on whether you're scared or something's to difficult, you always need to break through those challenges. Lastly, love conquers all things.
What I have gained from reading this novel is that I should never give up and always do my best. I believe that this novel has helped me gain confidence in myself and to realize that I am smart and I can do it. . It showed me that there's always going to be a bump in the road and I just have to have the endurance to get over it.
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Blake Petit, Louisiana United States
<2006-12-21 00:00>
I've been a reader for as long as I can remember, but one of the first books I truly fell in love with was Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. I recently felt the urge to read through it again, and while I find I still love it as much as I did as a child, I now love it for different reasons. When I first read this book, I remember feeling as though I was embarking on some grand, epic adventure, the sort of feeling you get from Lord of the Rings. Reading it again as an adult, I'm surprised at how small a story it actually is. Oh, it's still a great adventure, spanning time and space, but for all its cosmic scope it's really the story about a family.
The Murray family is going through hard times - the eldest, Meg, is having troubles fitting in at school. The youngest, Charles Wallace, is an outcast and hides his incredible intelligence to such a degree that everyone outside the family thinks him a fool. And the children's father has been missing for a long time - exactly how long is never revealed, but it's been more than a year and long enough that five-year-old Charles Wallace doesn't even remember him. The world changes for the children when Charles Wallace befriends a trio of eccentric women in a nearby house, women who turn out to be agents of a much higher power that are about to send Meg, Charles Wallace and Meg's schoolmate Calvin on a quest to bring the children's father home.
Madeline L'Engle succeeded on virtually every level with this novel. She created unforgettable characters and and fantastic settings. She managed to explain complex scientific principles in a manner that young readers could comprehend. She took a cosmic conflict - the ultimate war of good versus evil - and showed it in a prism that a young reader could relate to - the struggle to save a father. And the descriptions of life on the dark planet Camazotz and the hideous creature IT frightened me more as a child than the goriest Stephen King novel or Freddy Krueger movie could ever hope to do.
Even now, this is still easily one of my favorite books, and when I have children of my own, I can't wait to share it with them.
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