A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a science fiction fantasy novel by American writer Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. It is about Meg And Charles Walence. Their father, who was working on a interesting project called a tesseract, goes missing! Then they meet a boy and some strange women. This story won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award For this amazing story! It also has a movie! I Hope you all enjoy!
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- There's a passage that I love near the end of Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" (1962) that mentions exactly this idea in the context of a discussion on predestination vs. free will, and not knowing what the future holds.
"There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?"
"Yes." Calvin nodded.
"And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?"
"No."
"But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn't he?"
"Yes." Calvin nodded again.
"So," Mrs. Whatsit said.
"So what?"
"Oh, do not be stupid boy!" Mrs. Whatsit scolded. "You know perfectly well what I am driving at!"
"You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?"
"Yes," Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."
- (other readers: sorry, I know this post is going to be a bit obnoxiously long, but I didn't want to put it on a pastebin or some other external service and potentially have it disappear if someone wanted to reference it in the future. If you're not interested please feel free to collapse this!)
I actually asked my mom to compile a list of books she could remember, because a friend had kids and was getting to the age where they were starting to read too. Here's what she came up with (note, no particular order of difficulty or maturity here):
My Father’s dragon series
Where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein
A pizza the size of the Sun
Choose your own adventure books
The Great Brain
The Boxcar Children series
Captain Underpants
Roald Dahl books: The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/The Great Glass Elevator (not as good)
My Side of the Mountain
No More Dead Dogs
The Secret Garden
Bridge to Terabithia (Deals with death, a little older)
The Lion, the witch, and the wardrobe
Across five Aprils (civil war historical fiction, older)
The Broken Blade (Voyageur) & Sequel
Island of the blue dolphins
The witch of blackbird pond
Johnny Tremaine (a bit older)
The sign of the Beaver
Charlotte’s Web
Because of Winn Dixie
Tuck Everlasting (sad at end)
Ruby Holler
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Treasure Island
The Pushcart War
Maniac Magee
Rascal
Frindle
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen)
Mr. Popper’s Penguins (young)
Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing (Juy Blume)
Pippi Longstocking
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (young)
A Wrinkle in Time
Moccasin Trail
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
From the Mixed Up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Egypt Game
The Phantom Tollbooth (young)
Holes (little older)
Sideways Stories from Wayside School (young)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Homer Price (easy reading)
The Indian in the Cupboard
Misty of Chincoteague (series)
Aesop’s Fables (young)
The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm
Redwall series
Watership Down
(I'll throw in the Discworld series too for kids that are getting a bit older! It's probably very readable for, say, an advanced 5th grader. I was tearing through all the redwall books and the Golden Compass series at that point and Discworld is probably comparable. Golden Compass wasn't finished then and The Amber Spyglass ended up being kind of a disappointment. I know I was reading Discworld by 7th grade for sure.)
- A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
I probably read it in fourth or fifth grade, not too many years after it was published. It was definitely the first science fiction novel I ever read. It wasn't until many years later that I saw how foundational to my worldview it was that my first SF book had a female protagonist.
I was going to give a few other examples of truly life-changing works (LOTR, Dune, Neuromancer), but I'm not sure how I would have found them if A Wrinkle In Time hadn't opened by pre-adolescent eyes.
- Ah, fond memories of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.
- see my nick, but in addition to stephenson, the books i come back to over and over again for comfort and wisdom include:
- Lord of the Rings: The other bible. Not even the very wise can see all ends; be of good cheer.
- A Wrinkle In Time: 9 year old me, there is such a thing as a tesseract, and there is also Mrs. Beast.
- The Master and Margarita: apocalyptic reading from someone who knew, and a cat who always pays his way.
- the Discworld series: Sir Terry knew our hearts better than most, and sin, young feller, is treatin’ people as things.
- If On A Winter’s Night, A Traveler: a perfect joke that you can tell once, plus a love story.
- Good Omens: Gaiman and Pratchett team up, what’s not to love?
- Moby Dick: And so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.
- Lucky Jim: grad school, a survival guide. Come in on the fa la la las, there’s a good chap.
This doesn’t include poetry, which is also in my head constantly.
- There was a burst of this in the 1950s and 1960s, inspired by interest in/anxiety about science and math prompted by Sputnik, the space race, and nuclear war. So these are period pieces but you still might enjoy them -- I did:
Fantasia Mathematica (1958) and The Mathematical Magpie (1962), two short story collections edited by Clifton Fadiman
Mathenauts (1967), short story collection edited by Rudy Rucker
The Space Child's Mother Goose (1958?), poetry
Come to think of it, A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L'Engle (1962) fits right in with this group. The math and cold war anxiety themes are stronger in the book than in the recent movie.
