A Wrinkle in Time

Title: A Wrinkle in Time
Author: Madeleine L'Engle
ISBN: 0440498058

Other Books in Series: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters

Plot Summary: Meg Murry and her brother Charles Wallace, the children of scientists, are both misfits: Meg does not fit in socially with her peers, and Charles Wallace, although a genius, mystifies his teachers. Their father is currently missing; before he left, he was working on a theoretical concept known as a tesseract. Together with Meg's friend Calvin O'Keefe, also a social outcast, they make the acquaintance of an eccentric old woman, Mrs. Whatsit. Along with her "sisters" Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, they transport the three through space and time via tesseract, which they explain as a "folding" of the space-time continuum. During their travels, they find out that the universe is being threatened by a malicious force, known as the Black Thing or IT, which is holding their father captive on a planet called Camazotz. The Earth, as revealed to them by the Happy Medium, is also in danger of being engulfed by the Black Thing's darkness. Partial exposure to IT injures Meg, who is nursed back to health by a friendly, telepathic creature she comes to call Aunt Beast. Once Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace reach Camazotz, they find a "Stepford Planet," a suburban hell inhabited by people all like each other, leading identical lives, under IT's thrall. In order to free her brother and father from IT, who takes them both captive, Meg must confront IT with all the things IT cannot stand: love, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of individual happiness.



Critical Evaluation: This book's message, like that of Little Brother, is grounded in the founding principles of the United States: namely, that human beings are not only entitled to certain inalienable rights, but that if the governing powers challenge those rights, it is the right of the people to take them back. L'Engle's presentation of her protagonists as intelligent yet socially misunderstood will surely appeal to anyone who has felt alienated from their peers. Her characters do not always talk like children or adolescents their age; however, the fact that they are "advanced" may explain this at least in part. Her vision of Camazotz is a trenchant commentary on the cookie-cutter suburban communities so prevalent at the time this book was written, in the early Sixties, and her point that like and equal are not necessarily the same thing is one that will not be lost even on the youngest reader.
Reader's Annotation: Meg Murry and her little brother, Charles Wallace, try to find their missing father, who was researching ideas that may change the way people view the space-time continuum. In the process of trying to find him, they explore different worlds, meet strange but interesting new people, and may just end up saving the universe in the process.

About the Author: Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born in 1918 in New York City. She began writing at an early age. After graduating with honors from Smith College, she met her husband, Hugh Franklin, while acting with him in a play. They moved to Connecticut and opened a general store; during this time, she continued writing, and they adopted the daughter of late friends in addition to their own son and daughter. She suffered from ill health in later life, resulting from an automobile accident, osteoporosis, and a cerebral hemmorhage. She died of natural causes in 2007.
L'Engle's published works include memoirs, essays, adult fiction, poetry, and children's and Young Adult fiction. Her fictional works are informed by her sometimes controversial religious beliefs, and vary between her two different conceptions of time: Kairos, pure time, unfettered by location or continuity; and Chronos, the "normal" chronological time common to most people on Earth. Characters from her books interact across these continua, and frequently "cross over" for plot reasons.

Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy

Curriculum Ties: Civics

Booktalking Ideas:

Hook: Charles Wallace and Meg argue with IT that "like and equal are not the same."
Approach: Scene-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: When everyone is the same as each other, does this make them equal? Why or why not? Can people living in the same society who are different from each other ever be considered equal, provided they are governed by the same laws? Compare Camazotz with current American society, and whether or not people are treated equally there.

Hook: Charles Wallace, Meg, and Calvin are all social outcasts.
Approach: Character-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Charles is "too smart" for a five-year-old, and flummoxes his teachers, whom he makes feel stupid. Meg, although not quite as brilliant, is also far above average, but has trouble making friends as easily as Sandy and Dennys, the "normal" twins in the Murry family. Calvin, although not a member of the family, also feels like something of a misfit. Explore the different reasons for these three feeling different from others, and how their individual personalities and family lives have contributed to this.

Hook: What is a tesseract, and what is its significance to the plot?
Approach: Plot-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Meg and Charles Wallace's father disappeared due to his research into tesseracts. Mrs. Whatsit advances the plot by letting Meg and Charles Wallace know that tesseracts do in fact exist; she and the other Mrs. Ws explain the concept to the children, then bring them into new worlds and situations by using them. Initiates the main conflict of the plot, moves it along at strategic points, is both an essential plot point and the main dynamic factor moving it along. Explain and discover how tesseracts work based on book's explanation, with visual aids if necessary (drawing on blackboard, folding a piece of cloth, etc.).

Reading Level/Interest Age: Grades 7-12


Challenge Issues: Religious viewpoint. To Madeleine L'Engle, religion, science and magic exist along the same continuum. She frequently explores this theme in both her fiction and non-fiction works, and this book is no exception. Many "magical" beings exist in this book's universe, and the means by which they travel, although fantastical, is grounded in scientific research. However, the final denouement depicts Meg defeating a malign, controlling entity by means of faith, hope and love, three decidedly un-magical, un-scientific concepts. People approaching her work from a solely faith-based background may condemn the scientific and magical aspects of her work as antithetical to religion. In response, I would point out that L'Engle's views on science and magic, and for that matter on life, were deeply informed by her religious beliefs, that faith ultimately wins the day for her protagonists, and that the characters in this book, in the end, come through their ordeals with an even greater belief than before in that which can neither be quantified nor proven.


Why I Chose This Book: This book and its sequels influenced me greatly as a young reader, as much for the ideas they explored as for the fantastical situations in which L'Engle placed her characters. In re-reading A Wrinkle in Time, I realized that although it does not contain as much "mature" content as other Young Adult literature - language, sexuality, substance abuse, etc. - it handles ideas and concepts which are as challenging to older readers as they are to younger ones.