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Many Waters (Time Quartet) (Paperback)
by Madeleine L'Engle
Category:
Science fiction, Ages 9-12, Children's books |
Market price: ¥ 88.00
MSL price:
¥ 78.00
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Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
Good for Gifts
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MSL Pointer Review:
Another top-notch Murry children tale from L'Engle which is a wonderful ramp through Biblical and mythological lore combined with elements of fantasy and science fiction. |
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Author: Madeleine L'Engle
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Pub. in: May, 1998
ISBN: 0440227704
Pages: 336
Measurements: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00294
Other information: Reprint edition
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- MSL Picks -
Again, Madeleine L'Engle puts forth yet another triumph. Many Waters is a unique heart warming story that almost all can relate to and enjoy. L'engle fills the adventure of Sandy and Dennys Murry with romance, rich vocabulary, Biblical stories and theories, and more adult criteria. Sandy and Dennys Murry, the "normal" boys in a family of geniuses, suddenly find themselves trudging through a blazing-hot desert, seeking a far-off oasis for shade. Their desperate wandering brings them face-to-face with history-biblical history. Soon they're feeling right at home with Noah and his family. As they begin to cross the invisible border into adulthood, the twins must confront their ability to resist temptation and embrace integrity. The story is more tension than plot: the tension of the Nephilim, fallen angels whose power on earth seems somehow threatened by the mysterious arrival of the twins; the sexual tension that both Sandy and Dennys feel as they are drawn to Yalith, Noah's youngest daughter; and the tension that readers feel, wondering how those protagonists not mentioned in Genesis are going to survive the Flood, which is plainly imminent throughout the book. This suspense lacks the urgency found in the other books of the trilogy, however, mainly because the characters are subservient to atmosphere, incident, and ideas. It is as hard for readers to tell the twins apart as it is for Noah. One is curious as to how they will escape, but hardly worried. The strength of this book lies in its haunting descriptions of a time resonant of our own. Its weakness is a pat ending and characters so slightly drawn that we hardly care.
L'Engle's mystical mix of science fiction and fantasy, time and space travel, history, morals, religion, and culture once again urges her many adoring readers to stretch their minds and hearts to understand why the world is the way it is.
Target readers:
Kids aged 9-12
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Madeleine L'Engle is the author of more than forty-five books for all ages, among them the beloved A Wrinkle in Time, awarded the Newbery Medal; A Ring of Endless Light, a Newbery Honor Book; A Swiftly Tilting Planet, winner of the American Book Award; and the Austin family series of which Troubling a Star is the fifth book. L'Engle was named the 1998 recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards award, honoring her lifetime contribution in writing for teens. Ms. L'Engle was born in 1918 in New York City, late in her parents' lives, an only child growing up in an adult world. Her father was a journalist who had been a foreign correspondent, and although he suffered from mustard gas poisoning in World War I, his work still took him abroad a great deal. Her mother was a musician; the house was filled with her parents' friends: artists, writers, and musicians. "Their lives were very full and they didn't really have time for a child," she says. "So I turned to writing to amuse myself." When she was 12, Ms. L'Engle moved with her family to the French Alps in search of purer air for her father's lungs. She was sent to an English boarding school -"dreadful," she says. When she was 14, her family returned to America and she went to boarding school once again, Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina-which she loved. When she was 17, her father died. Ms. L'Engle spent the next four years at Smith College. After graduating cum laude, she and an assortment of friends moved to an apartment in Greenwich Village. "I still wanted to be a writer; I always wanted to be a writer, but I had to pay the bills, so I went to work in the theater," she says.
Touring as an actress seems to have been a catalyst for her. She wrote her first book, The Small Rain, while touring with Eva Le Gallienne in Uncle Harry. She met Hugh Franklin, to whom she was married until his death in 1986, while they were rehearsing The Cherry Orchard, and they were married on tour during a run of The Joyous Season, starring Ethel Barrymore. Ms. L'Engle retired from the stage after her marriage, and the Franklins moved to northwest Connecticut and opened a general store. "The surrounding area was real dairy farmland then, and very rural. Some of the children had never seen books when they began their first year of school," she remembers. The Franklins raised three children -Josephine, Maria, and Bion. Ms. L'Engle's first book in the Austin quintet, Meet the Austins, an ALA Notable Children's Book, has strong parallels with her life in the country. But she says, "I identify with Vicky rather than with Mrs. Austin, since I share all of Vicky's insecurities, enthusiasms, and times of sadness and growth." When, after a decade in Connecticut, the family returned to New York, Ms. L'Engle rejoiced. "In some ways, I was back in the real world." Mr. Franklin resumed acting, and became well known as Dr. Charles Tyler in the television series All My Children. Two-Part Invention is Ms. L'Engle's touching and critically acclaimed story of their long and loving marriage. The Time quintet-A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time-are among her most famous books, but it took years to get a publisher to accept A Wrinkle in Time. "Every major publisher turned it down. No one knew what to do with it," she says. When Farrar, Straus & Giroux finally accepted the manuscript, she insisted that they publish it as a children's book. It was the beginning of their children's list." Today, Ms. L'Engle lives in New York City and Connecticut, writing at home and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where she is variously the librarian and the writer-in-residence. "It depends from day-to-day on what they want to call me. I do keep the library collection-largely theology, philosophy, a lot of good reference books-open on a volunteer basis."
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A touch of computer keys, a blast of heat, and suddenly the Murry twins, Sandy and Dennys, are gasping in a shimmering desert land. If only the brothers had normal parents, not a scientist mother and a father who experiments with space and time travel. If only the Murry twins had noticed the note on the door of their mother's lab: Experiment in Progress. Please Keep Out. But it's too late for regrets. There's a strange-and very small-person approaching, with a miniature mammoth in tow... At last it's Sandy and Dennys's turn for an adventure-an adventure that turns serious when they discover that "many waters" are coming to flood the desert. The twins must find a way back home soon, or they will drown. But how will they get back to their own time? Can they?
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View all 17 comments |
Kat Solo (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Now matter how many times I read it, this book never disappoints. Its fascinating story recreates a biblical world that time forgot. Rather than sticking to the typical genesis story, L'engle leaves you with plenty of food for thought. However, don't pick up this book expecting it to be just like her Meg stories. Written in a style more akin to her adult novels or those about the Austins, this book has a more serious undertone. While slower paced, it is full of detail and introspection not found in the others. To me, this book is a delight to read no matter what age you are and is as good at almost 20 as at almost 15. Recently, my mother finally reluctantly picked it up at my suggestion and it's now one of her favorite books. |
Aleesha Coke (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
For me, this book was an all-time favorite of mine through my teen years. I picked it up at the age of fourteen and read it in a day, barely stopping to eat! I completely fell in love with the Murray twins, Sandy and Dennys, who are learning not only to cope with the onslaughts of puberty, but with their odd-man-out status in a family of extra-extraordinary individuals. I loved "A Wrinkle In Time" as a child, but I loved the fact that L'Engle gave the twins their own shot at an supernatural adventure, which in turn helps them with the transition into manhood and discovering who they really are. A snowstorm forces the fifteen-year-old twins indoors from an impromptu hockey game. They are alone in the Murray house, and soon boredom sets in, leading the boys to start snooping in their father's laboratory. A time machine is unwittingly discovered, the boys wish for "some place warm and dry", and the next thing they know, they are whisked away to a strange desert, not knowing that their father's invention has transported them to the Biblical times of Noah and the great flood. Here they discover that humans live for hundreds of years, that nephilims (angels thrown down from heaven) are the bad guys, and seraphim (good angels still in the service of God) are the good guys. Noah has just been told by God to build an ark, but everyone, including his children, thinks he's crazy. Yet with the twins' help, God's will is eventually carried out, but with a price. Much angst, adventure, conspiracy, violence, romance and Biblical lessons insure. I'll say one thing--Sunday school never taught you THIS about the famous story of Genesis! L'Engle flawlessly incorporates Biblical texts with her own fictional twists. The end result is a wonderful read that will make you adore the members of the Murray family even more. |
Kelly Steed (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Sandy and Dennys Murry enter their parent's lab and play on their father's computer something that is strictly forbidden. But as the saying goes, "Boys will be boys!" It tessers them to the warm climate they requested. At first the boys believe that they have landed on a distant planet but soon discover they are still on Earth having traveled back to biblical times. They meet Japheth while he's divining for water in the desert. He takes them to his grandfather Lamech's oasis where their burnt skin is treated. Lamech's son is Noah of the ark and flood fame. People lived hundreds of years in this time but they misused their years and that's why El (God) seeks to destroy the Earth. He chooses to spare Noah and part of his family. God like creatures, the Nephilim and the Seraphim, roam the Earth. Both need a physical host and use animals which they shape shift in and out of at will. The Nephilim are the equivalent of God's fallen angels and the Seraphim are his loyal angels whose chosen to loose some of their powers in order to protect man. Yalith, Noah's daughter, is on the verge of becoming a woman. The twins fall in love with her and she with them. Eblis is a nephilim and has offered to instruct Yalith in the ways of pleasure. She resists! Sandy and Dennys are the normal ones in the Murray family out-going jocks who fit-in everywhere. Now they discover that they have to find their own way out of this situation before they too drown in the flood. Many Waters is a wonderful ramp through Biblical and mythological lore combined with elements of fantasy and science fiction. Another top-notch Murry children tale from L'Engle! |
Angela (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
When I started reading Many Waters I was in awe! The different characters and the settings jumped out at you, and I liked that. The characters seemed to interest me as well. The fact that the boys were able to help people so much and catch the errors of the families was amazing! That is why I have the book 5 stars. |
View all 17 comments |
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