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A Wrinkle in Time

50th Anniversary

2012 marked the 50th Anniversary of "A Wrinkle in Time"

by Madeleine L'Engle

The Unlikely Best-Seller:

"A Wrinkle In Time" Turns 50

All Things Considered

March 5, 2012

Photo: Crosswicks Ltd./McIntosh

Madeleine L'Engle reads with her granddaughters, Charlotte and Lena, in 1976.

This broadcast features L'Engle reading several passages from the book, and includes interviews with L'Engle's granddaughter, Charlotte Jones Voiklis and author Rebecca Stead. "A Wrinkle in Time" is featured prominently in Stead's book "When You Reach Me" .

Rebecca Stead's autographed copy of A Wrinkle in Time. The inscription reads: "for Rebecca — tesser well — Madeleine L'Engle."

Photo: Rebecca Stead

This video opens with an introduction by Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughter, Charlotte Jones Voiklis, followed by a slide show of "A Wrinkle in Time" covers, photographs of Madeleine L'Engle, and readings by the author.

A Wrinkle in Time 50th Anniversary Event

February 11, 2012

Symphony Space in NYC

Published on Mar 16, 2012

L'Engle wrote her first story by the age of five (Roundtree, 1999, p. 98)

L'Engle the writer

"In 1976, [L'Engle's] papers and manuscripts became part of a special collection at the Buswell Library at Wheaton College, Illinois" (Scaperianda, 2000, p.4).

L'Engle's Imagery

References

L'Engle told author Cathleen Roundtree, "When you write, don't think. Write....write every day, and when you get 'stuck,' swim or walk or do something else you like that is physical" (1999, p. 98).

"Two of L'Engle's favorite images are the wind and the night sky. ...in 'A Wrinkle in Time,' [the wind] is associated wth the guardian angels...on Uriel the children look at the night sky through a thin atmosphere and see many stars"(McClellan, 2008, p. 92).

Fact or Fiction

Madeleine was universally described as a storyteller. Her version of reality was often her own. "L'Engle's family habitually refer to all her memoirs as 'pure fiction,' and, conversely, consider her novels to be the most autobiographical...of her books"(Zarin, 2004, p.6).

Order your signed copy

References

A Wrinkle In Time.

L'Engle, Madeleine.

Bookseller: Raptis Rare Books, ABAA/ ILAB

(Brattleboro, VT, U.S.A.)

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Book Description: New York: Ariel Books, 1962. First edition of the author's Newbury award-winning novel. Octavo, original half blue cloth. Inscribed by the author, "For Sam, Tesser Well Madeleine L'Engle". Light wear to the bottom boards, else near fine in a very near fine dust jacket that shows some light wear and a closed tear to the front panel. Without the Newberry Award winning seal to the front panel. Housed in a custom clamshell box. A very sharp copy. A Wrinkle in Time is one of the most significant novels of our time. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. "A book that every person should read, a book that provides a road map for seeking knowledge and compassion even at the worst of times, a book to make the world a better place." (Cory Doctorow). Bookseller Inventory # 757

Awards

Awards include: The Newbery Medal in 1963, American Library Association Notable Children's Books, Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List. L'Engle also won many awards for her entire body of work, including the ALAN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Adolescent Literature from the National Council of Teachers of English, the Kerlan Award, and the SLJ Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime contribution to writing for teens. She was also awarded 17 honorary Doctorate degrees.

There is a link to a complete list of awards and honors granted to L'Engle on the Additional Resources and Links page at the end of this presentation

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Madeleine+L'Engle&pics=on&sgnd=on&sortby=1&cm_mmc=-_-US_AbeBooks_Top500Authors-_-US_Top500Authors_Madeleine_L%27Engle-_-signed%20madeleine%20l%27engle&gclid=CJuh3rvU5rgCFabm7AodIWoAQQ

About the book

"A Wrinkle in Time" was

L'Engle's 7th work of fiction

About the author

Personal life

"A Wrinkle in Time" received at least 26 rejections before it was finally published in 1962

"It was a dark and stormy night".

L'Engle's mother came up with the title "A Wrinkle in Time" (Scholastic, n.d., p. 3)

"With a wink to the reader, she chose for the opening line of 'A Wrinkle in Time,' her most audaciously original works of fiction, one of the hoariest of cliches...L'Engle herself was certainly aware of the old warhorse's literary provenance as line one, page one of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's much-maligned, much parodied repository of Victorian purple prose, 'Paul Clifford' (1830). Young readers were less likely to get the joke, but critics were sure to do so" (Marcus, 2012, p. 14).

It then won the

Newbery Medal in 1963

The book was dedicated to L'Engle's father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, and her father-in-law Wallace Collin Franklin (Scholastic.com)

At the time of L'Engle's death in 2007, the book had sold 8 million copies and was in it's 69th printing (Martin, 2007, p.1)

The book combines fantasy with science fiction, and was groundbreaking for its themes and strong female characters

Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born on November 29, 1918 in New York City, the only child of older, well-to-do parents. Her mother was a pianist, and her father was a journalist and mystery writer. Her parents didn't spend a lot of time with her; she seemed to get in the way of their active social lives. She disliked school as a young girl, and was not a stellar student. She was awkward and gangly as a child. Her parents moved from New York to France, ostensibly for her father's health. Her parents put her in a boarding school in Switzerland without telling her first. She was very unhappy there, where the students were referred to by numbers instead of names. Her parents moved back to the United States, and L'Engle attended a boarding school in South Carolina. Her father died during her senior year, in 1936. She always told the same story, that her father was injured by mustard gas in World War I, causing a lifetime of lung problems. When he died, L'Engle blamed the mustard gas, but family members said he actually died of pneumonia and alcoholism (Marcus, 2012).

L'Engle graduated from Smith College in 1941, and had her first story published in 1944, the same year she began her acting career. In 1945 she was cast in the play "The Cherry Orchard" and her first novel, "The Small Rain" was published. While on tour, she met Hugh Franklin, the actor most famous for his role as Dr. Charles Tyler on All My Children. They married in 1946; that summer they purchased a large, rundown old farmhouse in Goshen, CT, which they moved into full time after the birth of their first child, Josephine.

The couple decided to raise their family in the country, so Hugh gave up his acting career and the couple ran the local general store in Goshen. Their son Bion was born in 1952, and in 1956, they adopted Maria, the daughter of friends who both passed away (Marcus, 2012).

Their"white farmhouse became the proto-setting" for "A Wrinkle in Time" and several other books (Zarin, 2004, p. 7). The decade of the 50's was "when we were poised for nuclear war. We thought Goshen would be a better, safer place for the children to grow up. Then we realized there was no safe place...I was conscious of creating it in life, and the books were echoing what that life was like" (Zarin, 2004, p. 7). The couple moved back to New York City during the time L'Engle was writing "A Wrinkle in Time." She often claimed she got the idea for the three Mrs Ws during a 10-week family camping trip in 1959.

L'Engle was a practicing Episcopalian who often wrote about faith. "For more than three decades, starting in 1966, [she] served as librarian and writer in residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine"(Martin, 2007, p.3).

L'Engle's website credits her with writing 55 books, including fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Hugh Franklin died in 1986, and son Bion died in 1999. L'Engle passed away on September 6, 2007. She was survived by her two daughters, five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. (Martin, 2007, p. 3).

image credit: Tumbler

Madeleine L'Engle shows off her writing space in St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, New York City

What is a tesseract?

Physicist David Morgan discusses tesseracts on NPR's Bryant Park Project

The Story

Meg Murry along with her youngest brother Charles Wallace, and a new friend, Calvin O'Keefe, time travel with the help of three magical women to find and rescue Mr. Murry, a government scientist on a secret mission who has been missing over a year.

The trio travel through time and space using tesseracts, which are folds or wrinkles in time, and after a couple of interplanetary stops, wind up on the planet Camazotz which is ruled by a giant, evil, tryrannical brain named IT.

The children learn about "The Dark Thing", which is an evil power that men from Earth have fought for years. It is described as a huge black cloud that appears throughout the universe, and from space is seen to encircle Earth.

The children are introduced to two beneficent beings, the Happy Medium, and Aunt Beast, both of whom offer guidance in their quest.

Quotable L'Engle

"Science depends as much upon the imagination as upon the intellect. Like a poet, the scientist uses inspiration and intuition...the scientist, like the artist, appreciates aesthetics and balance" (L'Engle, 1982, p. 103).

In the process of saving Mr. Murry, Charles Wallace also falls under the evil spell of IT, and a second rescue mission to Camazotz is required to save him.

"We...live in a world where there is darkness and light, and the sooner kids know that, the better. They need to know that we have a choice, and we do have the option to choose good" (Scholastic, p. 2).

Meg is the only one who can save Charles Wallace, by virtue of her faults, including stubbornness and her bad temper. Ultimately, it is Meg's stubborn determination and the power of love that saves Charles Wallace, and allows the children and Mr. Murry to return home safely.

L'Engle on time

"I was told the first word I said was 'clock'" (Marcus, 2006, p. 104).

"Sometimes I think about time. That the star I am looking at is that star as it looked a hundred or four hundred years ago. That when I stand here, in this time, and look at that star, I am not just looking at space. I am looking at time -- at another time. That fascinates me" (Marcus, 2006, p. 105).

" We do not understand time. We know that time exists only when there is mass in motion. We also know that energy and mass are interchangeable, and that pure energy is freed from the restrictions of time. One of the reasons that 'A Wrinkle in Time' took so long to find a publisher is that it was assumed that children would not be able to understand a sophisticated way of looking at time, would not understand Einstein's theories. But no theory is too hard for a child so long as it is part of a story; and although parents had not been taught Einstein's E=mc2 in school, their children had been" (L'Engle, 1982, p. 109).

L'Engle referred to Meg's parents as Mr. and Mrs. Murry despite their muliple PhD degrees.

Characters

The Three Mrs Ws

Mrs Whatsit , Mrs Who and Mrs Which are three supernatural beings who act as guides to Meg , Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe on their quest to rescue Mr. Murry. There are references to the three being "angels", "guardian angels" and "messengers of God" (L'Engle, 2012, p. 183).

Mrs Whatsit magically metamorphoses into a winged horse-like creature on the planet "Uriel" (L'Engle, p. 58). She was a star that died in battle with "The Thing" (L'Engle, p. 88).

Canons of Sentiment and Significance

Mrs Who quotes famous literary characters in several languages ( L'Engle, p. 51).

Mrs Which talks in a haunting stutter, and doesn't always fully materialize (L'Engle, P. 52)

L'Engle intentionally omitted the periods in the "Three Ws" names to indicate that they were different than ordinary people. She had to fight to keep the periods out of the character's names. "When the names 'Mrs Whatsit,' 'Mrs Who,' and 'Mrs Which' first appeared in print with periods, Madeleine had been furious. She had wanted no periods, as a way of signaling to the reader that these were not ordinary mortals but special creatures." (Marcus, 2012, p. 65).

More Characters

While time and space traveling, The three Ws introduce the children to the Happy Medium, and Aunt Beast, two beneficent characters, who also happen to be women.

The other main human character is Calvin O'Keefe, the tall, handsome athletic neighbor, who, like Charles Wallace, is also psychically gifted , but has the misfortune of being one of 11 children in a dysfunctional home. He is 14 years old and in the 11th grade.

In keeping with the contrasts presented by "A Wrinkle in Time," the book arguably fits within both the sentimental canon and the canon of significance described by Stevenson (1997). The book has been extremely popular with children since it's release over 50 years ago. It tells a wondrous tale, capturing the reader's imagination and interest. It is precisely the type of book described in the Stevenson article that is loved by children at the time of the book's release, and also by adults who loved the book as children, who will continue to pass the book on to future generations.

"A Wrinkle in Time" is also arguably part of the canon of significance as a groundbreaking work of science fiction/fantasy. The several themes presented by the book can be explored academically, and are of interest at a minimum for their novelty at the time of the novel's first publication. The fact that there have been various challenges and bans of the book since its publication also makes

it discussion worthy, and of academic significance. The many themes L'Engle

weaves throughout the book are each worthy of their own in-depth analysis.

Is the number 11 significant?

L'Engle said in an interview "Eleven is a number [of dimensions] that's often mentioned in articles on physics, but I don't know why. Why 11 dimensions instead of 10 or 12? Who knows? It's just a guess!" (Scholastic, n.d.).

Characters

Ancestry and Progeny

The Murry Family

Influences: Christian theology and physics

Meg Murry is a sullen, self-conscious ninth grade girl who doesn't fit in. She hates school, gets poor grades, and is often in trouble. She has glasses and braces, and is self-conscious about her plain looks. She is good at math, but only when she can do it her way. She is defiant, brave and refuses to abandon hope that her father will return from his secret mission. She adores her youngest brother Charles Wallace.

L'Engle is quoted in the book "On Women Turning 70" as saying "'A Wrinkle in Time' is based on Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Planck's quantum theory. Just as good science as I could make it" (Roundtree, 1999, p. 104).

Charles Wallace is a five-year-old savant who has

telepathic powers of perception. Because he didn't speak until the age of four, the townspeople often thought he was slow. He and Meg share an extraordinary brother-sister bond. He looks a lot like his father.

Setting

In her article "Mystical Fantasy for Children: Silence and Community", Leona Fisher implies that "A Wrinkle in Time" was preceded by fantasy books such as George MacDonald's "At the Back of the North Wind", Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows", and C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "The Last Battle," and that these books illustrated the evolution of the genre (1990, p.39).

Mrs. Murry is beautiful, loving and smart. She is a scientist who adores her family but also works on research in her lab which

is right next to the kitchen, seamlessly melding her work with her family life. She loves her husband and desperately longs for his return.

Themes

The Murrys live in a New England farmhouse in the woods very similar to the house L'Engle and her husband owned in Connecticut (1995, p. 76). The book takes place at the Murry house, the small town, and the neighboring woods where the three mysterious women live.

Mr. Murry is a brilliant government physicist who got lost in space while attempting to tesser to Mars. He is tall and skinny, with brilliant blue eyes and glasses.

Good

vs. Evil

When the children time travel to rescue Mr. Murry, the setting is outer space, including the planets Uriel, Ixchel and Camazotz, which the embodiment of evil, IT , controls.

Sandy and Dennys Murry are 10-year-old twin boys who do not have the same powers as Charles Wallace. They are athletic and popular...hence, the antithesis of Meg.

The Murrys, three Mrs Ws, Calvin, Family, love

Dark thing,

man with red eyes, IT

L'Engle used symbolic religious names for the planets in the book. Planet Uriel "takes its name from the Archangel who was ...called by Milton 'the sharpest sighted spirit of all in Heaven'," and Camazotz was "named appropriately after a malignant Mexican deity" (Stott, 1977, pp. 34-35).

Totalitarianism vs Freedom

Family

Ixchel is named "after the Mayan Goddess of the Rainbow, the symbol of fecundity, patron of the art of medicine, and wife of Izanna, the Light God. For it is here that one of the planet's creatures [Aunt Beast] cures Meg physically and mentally...the planet is without visible light...the inhabitants are guided by the inner light of love" (Stott, 1977, p. 37).

Religion and Science

Criticism

Criticism and Banning

STRONG WOMEN

Sacrifice

Gender equality

The book was criticized for linking Jesus to other great historical figures, all of whom were mentioned as fighting evil. The list included Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Shakespeare, Bach, Pasteur, Madame Curie,Einstein, Schweitzer, Gandhi, Buddha, Beethovan, Rembrandt, St. Francis, Euclid, and Copernicus (L'Engle, 2012, pp. 85-86).

Progeny

In 1991, the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association ranked Madeleine L'Engle number nine in its list of the top ten banned authors. Although 'A Wrinkle in Time is responsible for most of the statistics, other novels have made the list (McClellen, 2008, p. 121).

Banning

L'Engle on Religion

Personal responsibility

"'A Wrinkle in Time' is vastly misunderstood by some fundamentalists. A well-researched book (ask any physicist) about some children who travel to another time and learn some valuable lessons about love ended up being labeled as 'dangerous.' Angels are thought to be witches; the Naked Brain, Satan" (St. Ives, 1995, p. 3).

There were originally two books written after AWIT, but the number grew to four as the Time Trilogy became the Time Series quartet, and finally the Time Series quintet. The books were not written in chronological order.

"Christianity is not a comforting religion at all...I'm lightly Episcopalian, but I thrive on the mystery. I don't particularly want to understand that mystery" (LeDuff, 2001, p. 2).

The book and

it's times...

The other books in the series are: A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), Many Waters (1986), and An Acceptable Time (1989).

Love conquers all

There has been a (poorly received) Disney television movie, a planned theatrical Disney movie, a play, an opera, and a graphic novel adapted and illustrated by Hope Larson. The Wrinkle in Time Facebook page posted on October 31, 2012 "A progressive rock band, Shadow Circus, is releasing a CD w/music based upon and inspired by A Wrinkle in Time. The CD, entitled "On a Dark and Stormy Night", is being released with the full cooperation of the L’Engle estate as it coincides with the 50th anniversary of the original publication of the book.

Get more info details and listen to some tracks: http://10trecords.com/shadow-circus-release-on-a-dark-and-stormy-night/

"Particle physics and quantum mechanics are extremely theological because they are dealing with the nature of being, so they are just as theological as a tome on morals. Before I wrote 'Wrinkle', I {read Einstein's quote], 'Anyone who is not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe is as good as a burnt-out candle' and I thought, "oh, I have found my theologian" (Hearne, 1998, p. 31).

"If the groups protesting her book are to be believed, L'Engle is simultaneously too Christian, anti-Christian, pushing Christianity, spreading liberal Christianity, attacking Christ, questioning God, and indoctrinating kids into Eastern philosophy and witchcraft...via New Age and Eastern religions" (Boundandgaggedbooks blog post, 2013).

"A Wrinkle in Time" ranked 23rd among the most frequently challenged books of the 1990s (ALA). "It seems people are willing to damn the book without reading it" said L'Engle in a 2001 New York Times interview. "Nonsense about witchcraft and fantasy. First I felt horror, then anger, and finally I said, 'ah the hell with it'. It's great publicity, really" (Le Duff, p. 2).

Some of the themes of the book may emanate from events such as World War II, the atom bombs, the Cold War, Communism, the McCarthy hearings, the Space Race, the beginnings of the Civil Rights and Women's movements, and even perhaps the Roswell UFO incident of 1947.

Themes

"The criticism...is...always from Christians, usually from Fundamentalists: 'You are writing about a medium!' And I'll say, 'No, no. She was a happy medium'. Meg was always accused of never having a happy medium, so I gave her one. It's a play on words. It's a joke. It's funny. Fundamentalists don't seem to have much of a sense of humor" (Hearne, 1998, p. 33).

Paying homage

The Graphic Novel Trailer

The evil brain IT symbolizes the potential harmful power of a controlling (thinking but not feeling) government. The inhabitants of the planet Camazotz had no free will. One way Meg was able to fight being overtaken by IT was by reciting the Declaration of Independence (L'Engle, 2012, p. 153).

In her YA novel "When You Reach Me, " the 2010 Newbery medal winner, author Rebecca Stead prominently features "A Wrinkle in Time," one of her childhood favorites. Her main character reads and quotes from AWIT thoughout the story.

Religious Allegory

Sacrifice is a major theme in "A Wrinkle in Time". Meg is willing to sacrifice her life to save her father and beloved brother.

L'Engle uses allegory and allusion throughout the book. There are many references to the fight between good and evil, symbolized by light and dark, among other things. While on the planet Ixchel, Aunt Beast tells Meg in very biblical terms that they are also fighting the Black Thing. "We are called according to His purpose, and whom He calls, them He also justifies" (L'Engle, 2012, p. 178). She continued, "we look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen" (L'Engle, 2012, p. 179).

Another theme is self-reliance, and personal responsibility. Meg is warned by her school principal, "You're going to have to do something about yourself. Nobody can do it for you" (L'Engle, 2012, p. 24).

L'Engle and

the role of women

Allusion

L'Engle alludes to several previous authors and works, including Shakespeare (the family dog is named Fortinbras), and Alice in Wonderland (L'Engle, 2012, p.107)

"I find it easier to believe in the impossible now in my seventies than I did when I was in my rational midlife. I'm back to believing in the impossible, if there's anything worth believing in. You can't prove God or disprove God" (Rountree, 1999, p. 103).

The Ultimate Honor?

On March 26, 2013, the International Astronomical Union named one of the nine new craters on the planet Mercury "L'Engle"(Dickinson, 2013).

L'Engle claimed she was a feminist. She created strong female characters who had "education, careers, husbands and children" (Chase, 1995, p. 119). It was unusual at the time AWIT was written "to have a female child protagonist" (Chase, p. 119). L'Engle also bestowed upon Mrs. Murry two PhD degrees, and, in a later novel, the Nobel Prize.

Favorable reviews

"Ninety-five percent of people who challenge 'A Wrinkle in Time' use the terms 'occult,' 'Satanism,'

'anti-Christian,' or 'New Age' in their reasons for why they think the book is dangerous for children to read....over and over, challengers mention a concern that the novel will undermine children's religious beliefs (McClellen, 2008, p. 120).

L'Engle's granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis writes in the Afterword of the 50th Anniversary edition of AWIT "although there is very little by way of cultural references to ground the action of 'A Wrinkle in Time' in a specific historical moment, my grandmother wrote during a time when the threat of nuclear war was very real, and the description of the planet Camazotz has often been read as a cautionary tale about Soviet communism or totalitarianism more broadly...apart from the Cold War, the book can also be read as a response to another significant cultural and political vortex. I have always heard echoes of the civil rights movement in Meg's revelation that 'like and equal are not the same thing'"(L'Engle, 2012, p. 219).

L'Engle made multiple biblical references in AWIT, including quotations from Isaiah (42:10-12a) and I Corinthians (1:25-28). "Aunt Beast reminds Meg that things seen are temporal; things not seen are eternal (II Corinthians 4:18)" (Chase, 1995, p. 38).

New York Times Book Review, March 18, 1962

"Stories like this one, with its overtones reminiscent of Orwell's '1984,' of Hans Christian Andersen and C.S. Lewis, are not for the casual or strictly realistic reader. Imaginative readers with a taste for speculation, a feeling for intricate symbolism, should find it wholly absorbing -- for in her highly accelerated spin through space Miss L'Engle never loses sight of human needs and emotions."

L'Engle said, "...the Bible is a very chauvinistic book. Women are not important. Most of them are not named" (Hearne, 1998, p. 32).

L'Engle also said, "Jane Austen didn't make the beds, Emily Bronte didn't do the cooking--but I didn't want to give up either writing or children, so doing both was a choice that I made, not an easy one" (Hearne, 1998, p. 29).

When asked to name his favorite book, Neil Gaiman

replied "That's a hard one. I think it has to be 'A Wrinkle in Time' ...because it did weird things to the inside of my head. I do not think I saw the universe in the same way after reading it" (Gaiman, 2012, p. 110).

When asked his favorite book of all time, Dan Brown replied: "my earliest memory of being utterly transfixed by a book was Madeleine L'Engle's 'A Wrinkle in Time.' Halfway through the book, I remember my mom telling me it was time for bed and not being able to sleep because I was so deeply concerned for the safety of the characters. The next day, when I finished the book, I remember crying with relief that everything had worked out. The emotion startled me-- in particular the depth of connection I felt toward these imaginary characters. It was in that moment that I became aware of the magic of storytelling and the power of the printed word" (New York Times, 2013).

This book was written during a time when women were not writing science fiction, and books were not written about strong female characters. "When L'Engle wrote 'A Wrinkle in Time,' historical fiction and realistic novels about family life were the fashion as literature for young people" (Marcus, 2006, pp. 103-104).

L'Engle's granddaughter Charlotte Voiklis explained L'Engle's position on feminism: "my grandmother would maintain that in part the promise of feminism was that if a woman was free to focus her attentions on a career, she was also free to focus on her family"(L'Engle, 2012, p. 218).

L'Engle and Fathers

The searching for a father theme is central to much of L'Engle's work as she had a very distant relationship with her own father, who died at a relatively young age (Marcus, 2012, pp. 6-7).

"She lived in constant fear that her father might die" (Datnow, 1999, p. 84).

Meg is portrayed as strong enough to rescue her father...she is stronger than him, just as L'Engle was stronger than her own father.

L'Engle the storyteller re-wrote her own family history. There is evidence her father died of alcoholism and pneumonia, and not exposure to mustard gas during World War I as L'Engle always recounted (Marcus, 2012, p. 8).

Thank you for sharing this journey through

"A Wrinkle in Time"

Tesser Well!

image credit: Barnesandnoble.com

Original cover art

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