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A Wrinkle In Time. by Madeleine L'Engle. 1962. Yearling. 211 pages. ISBN: 9780440498056

As I mentioned in last week’s Old School Sunday post, I’ve given myself the task of reading all of Madeleine L’Engle’s Murry-O’Keefe and Austin novels in their original publication order. I don’t promise to read all of them this quickly, but I read through the entirety of A Wrinkle In Time in one afternoon. This was my second time reading it, but it’s been 5 years or so since the first time, so much of it felt new again.

The story, as most children’s literature readers know, is of awkward, plain adolescent, Meg Murry, and her quest to find her father. With the help of strange beings known as Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, the Happy Medium, and Aunt Beast, and a popular boy from school named Calvin O’Keefe, Meg tessers through time to find him, face her own feelings of inadequacy, and bring him home.

This is the first science fiction novel I read, when I was forced to explore the genre in library school, and therefore it’s the first book that made me realize how interesting it can be to combine ordinary, everyday occurrences with the possibilities posed by scientific speculation. This book is especially significant for me, because it explores that science through a religious and spiritual lens. Madeleine L’Engle imagines a God-infused universe, in which everything has meaning, and everything communicates, but not always in terms humans can grasp. She also recognizes, above all, the power of family, the struggle to accept oneself, and the fact that sometimes, our weaknesses can become our strengths.

I think the reason the book is so popular, and cited so often as a childhood favorite, is that kids really relate to Meg’s feelings of plainness and insignificance, and that they see themselves in her actions and hope they, too, could rise to the occasion in the hour of need. It also has hints of adventure and romance that pull in readers of those genres as well.

Another thing I really liked, which I noticed mostly because I read Meet the Austins and A Wrinkle In Time back to back, is the number of similarities between these two books. Both focus on families where a father has gone away - Maggy’s is dead, Meg’s missing. Both involve a close brother-sister relationship. Meg’s affection for Charles Wallace very closely mirrors Vicky’s for Rob. I also noted that Meg’s mother is a scientist, while Vicky’s dad is a doctor, and that John Austin and Meg both fret quite a bit about fitting in at school and finding a way to feel good about their strangeness. The Tesseract, a website devoted to L’Engle’s life and work includes on its FAQ page the question, "What is Madeleine L'Engle's personal philosophy?" Part of the answer provided by site author reads, “What kinds of evil do her characters fight, and who fights them? How do her characters feel about family, God, friendship, love, and being themselves? These are all clues to the philosophy of Madeleine L'Engle.” I think the recurrence of the same themes in A Wrinkle In Time as in The Austins represents L’Engle grappling with these very questions, telling the same story from different angles in an effort to get at the truth.

Madeleine L’Engle was truly an original writer. I love her worldview, her writing style, and her religious curiosi

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Today I conclude my series on Maurice Sendak's Nutshell Library with my review of Pierre. Though I was always disturbed as a kid by the idea that a lion could come along and eat a disagreeable child, I still have fond memories of this book from first grade. The book - and Carole King's sung version, of course - made such an impression on me, that I actually ordered my own copy from the school book order way back when, and somewhere, I still have it.

The premise of the story is that a boy named Pierre doesn't care about anything. When his parents get ready to go out, he refuses to get ready and go with them, so they leave him behind and go to town on their own. while they're gone, a lion comes along, and when Pierre expresses his indifference to being eaten, the lion gobbles him up. It is only after a harrowing rescue by his parents and a doctor that Pierre finally learns to say, "I care."

As a kid, what spoke to me the most, I think, was the fact that Pierre finally learned his lesson. I always prided myself on being a "good kid" and bad behavior of any kind intrigued and troubled me. I liked it when other kids - even fictional ones - discovered the error of their ways and started to behave. I think it gave me a sense of moral superiority, but also made me feel safe. I liked knowing that other kids weren't going to get in trouble, and that nothing bad would befall them.

As an adult, though, I find myself looking at Pierre on a somewhat deeper level. I'm no longer focused on trying to reform Pierre's behavior. Instead, the storyline makes me think about apathy, and what that can do to someone's life. Pierre's indifference to everything isn't just obnoxious rudeness - it's also the reason he misses out on opportunities. His lack of interest in anything happening around him - from what he eats for breakfast, to whether or not a lion swallows him whole - causes him to become the victim of others' choices. When he learns to care in the end, it's not necessarily a lesson in being good, like I thought when I was six, but a lesson in being the master of one's own destiny.

The fact that two readings of this book by the same person taking place 23 years apart can be so different is exactly the reason I think Maurice Sendak is so brilliant. There is always something more to uncover beneath the surface of his writing, and always something adults can appreciate along with their children.

Carole King's rendition of Pierre is below:

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