If I have to be honest, I suppose being a children’s librarian suits me well because I still love reading children’s and young adult chapter books. There. I said it. Thankfully, one of the biggest perks of my job is that I have hundreds of them at my fingertips and can read them at any time. You know. For research purposes.
While shelving some books last week I ran across A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
It is a dark and stormy night. Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother are in the kitchen for a midnight snack when a most disturbing visitor arrives.
“Wild night are my glory.” the unearthly stranger tells them. “I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment and then I’ll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.”
Meg’s father had been experimenting with this fifth-dimension of time travel when he mysteriously disappeared. Now the time has come for Meg, her friend Calvin, and Charles Wallace to rescue him. But can they outwit and overpower the forces of evil they will encounter on their heart-stopping journey through space?
L’Engle has such a distinct writing style that I daresay I could pick up a book not knowng it was hers and immediately recognize the author. I just love books like that. It’s been 26 years since I read this book (which was published in 1962), and I’m really enjoying this second reading because I really didn’t recognize all of the themes and deeper meanings playing out in this book when I was only 11 years old. I was also thrilled to learn that L’Engle had written three more books using the same characters
Accelerated Reader classifies this book at a reading level of 4.7 (almost a fifth grade level). If you have an eager reader who loves chapter books based on adventure and time-traveling, then this is a definite must-read classic.
It’s so interesting to reread some of the books you enjoyed as a child. Even cooler to find out they’re still as good as you remember.