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Tessering back to A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time – by Madeleine L’Engle
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
Stick with me now, friends. It may be a cliché, but it’s the start of one of the books that have lingered in my soul since elementary school. Judging by the posts that I have read here on Nerdy Book Club, and by the many references to L’Engle’s tale in recent novels, I’m not the only one. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Newbery winner, I’d like to take a moment to encourage you to join Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin on their first adventure.
Meg is a typical teenager who is struggling to learn how to live in her own skin. Her life is made more difficult, however, by all the ways in which she’s considerably less than typical. Her father, a world renowned scientist, has disappeared. Her beloved little brother, Charles Wallace, is five and won’t even speak in public, which makes everyone think he’s mentally deficient. Yet his advanced vocabulary and ability to read the thoughts and emotions of his mother and sister show that he’s anything but slow witted.
It could be the start of just another ordinary tale, but that stormy night is the beginning of an amazing adventure. The storm blows the first of three bizarre women into Meg’s life; women who reveal that her father needs their help. In his zeal to experiment with something called a “tesseract” – a method for traveling instantaneously across any distance – Mr. Murry has been captured in a world devoured by the dark power of the Black Thing. Meg, Charles Wallace, and their new friend Calvin must journey across time and space to save him. Along the way they experience many worlds. Some are filled with beauty and some with conformity and despair.
Madeleine L’Engle crafted a book that yields up new treasures every time I read it. As a preteen, Meg’s struggles to accept herself helped me face the same challenges. As a young adult, I gloried in the lessons about individuality and nonconformity. As a teacher and a mother, I identify more strongly with Mrs. Murry now. I just completed my most recent re-read, and what jumped out at me this time was the way Meg is desperately trying to grow up and move beyond her need to rely on her parents to solve all of her problems. Is it any surprise that I’m currently the parent of a child who is about to begin his own journey toward independence?
A Wrinkle in Time is a story where women can be scientists and mothers, teenage boys can be empathic communicators, and girls can be gifted mathematicians yet still struggle in school. It’s a book about young people growing up and learning to accept the way they are – strengths and flaws alike. It’s a glorious tale of the battle of good versus evil. It’s an anthem to love, to family, to friendship, and to hope. Wherever you are right now in your life – child or adult, teacher or student, male or female – you can find something in this tale that speaks to you. I know I do, every time.
Maria Selke has been a member of the Nerdy Book Club since early childhood, when she started bringing home stacks of books each week to the amusement of her local librarians. She spent 6 years in elementary special education, delighting in helping reluctant readers discover a love for books. The past 6 years she’s been frantically trying to keep one book ahead of a set of voracious readers as a gifted resource teacher in Pennsylvania. With a husband and two sons who also suffer from book addiction, her house is one large library. Her book stack usually includes a mix of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and comic books.
Follow her on Twitter – even though her tag isn’t exciting: @mselke01
Nerdy Book Club 
There was something about Wrinkle that hooked me, too, and I could never explain it to anyone else. I had no friends who liked it, and no teachers who recommended it, and even today, my wife gives it a thumbs-down and my reader-son couldn’t even finish it.
Still, like you, there is something about this book that has remained in my heart and head all of these years later. It was some combination of the oddness of time, of science as some malleable force in the world, and although I liked Meg as our protagonist, it was her brother – Charles Wallace — who sort of freaked me out, in a good way because I could never quite get a sense of him.
I still love the book. I can’t understand why others around me don’t.
🙂
(Thus, the power of the Nerdy Book Club.)
Kevin
My students almost universally like the book. One year we got into a huge debate over who was “smarter” – Artemis Fowl or Charles Wallace. That was a fun crew. I loved how they described him as “new”… what a perfect way to sum up that boy. I adore the rest of the series, too. I need to dig out and reread some more L’Engle.
I would argue that Meg wasn’t an ordinary teen, and that’s what drew me into the book. I loved her. (And Maria, when I was growing up the librarian told me that I could check out as many books as I could carry, which built great carrying skills that I definitely use today!)
Oh, she was SO not ordinary…. but I saw myself in her mousey features. (Not in her exceptional math skills, though. I was and am good at math – but never had her innate intuition with it).
I loved the library, and I’m thankful now for both my library and for the resources in my life to buy and be surrounded with books at my home at at work 🙂
If you love – or are curious about – Wrinkle in Time…. check out this link:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/a-wrinkle-in-time/a-wrinkle-in-time-50-years-50-days-50-blogs-celebration/359886904026455
Fifty blogs are celebrating the 50th anniversary with blog posts (I guess this makes us 51).
This book came out after I had was already reading YA and adult books- like a little Smart A**. (Yet another example of why I am so opposed to “accelerated” reading for kids- pushing them to books with upper grade level ratings as proof of what Smart A**es they are are.) I had to wait to discover this in a college reading course and it has been in my classrooms, reread, gifted, and recommended ever since. Along with the sequels.
I adore L’Engle’s work. I think A Swiftly Tilting Planet may be my favorite Murry family book. But I also like the other, less “fantasy” based ones like A Ring of Endless Light.
I recently reviewed this book because of its anniversary & because I wanted to share that I was already grown before it was published & I found it, & followed the series & L’Engle’s other books from then on. I still re-read Wrinkle often. I read it to my daughter, one of the important female role models I hoped to offer her, later on to my students & am now waiting for granddaughters to be old enough to taste the magic of Tessering. I hope the anniversary starts a re-birth of lots of students discovering the books all over again. Thank you for the review.
Isn’t it wonderful, though, how many MORE female role models there are now? There just were so few back then, it felt like.
I re-read this book at least once every other year, since I use it with a reading group.
I saw that it was the fiftieth anniversary of WRINKLE and dug the book out of our attic to read aloud to my daughters–8 & 9. So far they are enjoying it–though my older daughter insists on thinking that a TESSERACT is the half-man half-horse on the cover. ~sigh~
My 7 year old son’s class is going to see a play adaptation in May – so of course I started reading it to him. He thinks the beginning was “a bit boring – though it’s getting better”. *chuckles*
It’s so interesting to read about books people love that I really didn’t connect with. I love that everyone has their own tastes in books and that we each have our own books that speak to us. When I first read A Wrinkle In Time, I think I was in 4th or 5th grade and I really didn’t get the book. I reread it recently and I still didn’t really get the book – well, I got it a lot more than I felt like I did when I was younger – but I didn’t connect with it the way some people connect with it. I see it as a truly sci-fi book like Ender’s Game or Whales on Stilts and I totally respect it but it wasn’t a book that I connected with.
I hear you! There are frequently books that others love that I don’t connect with – but science fiction and fantasy have always been “my thing” (with historical fiction running right behind).
Did you like Ender’s Game? That’s another one of my ADORED science fiction list.
I discovered it as a parent and read it with my two sons. I Immediately had to read everything Ms. L’Engle had written, and was never disappointed.
Yes, I’m reading it with my second grader now (his class is getting to see a play version in May and I wanted him to experience the book first). He keeps saying, “Hey, mom…can we read more?” *grins*