Week 1B - A Wrinkle in Time

A few weeks ago I was helping my mom pack up her classroom, as school was over. Of the many boxes we packed, one was filled with a classroom set of this book. Even though it's a classic, I've never read it before. My mom handed me a copy and told me to take it home to read.

And thus A Wrinkle in Time came to sit around my room for a month.

I was out of town last week, enjoying a family reunion of sorts. When my boisterous cousins got to be a bit much, I settled into a quiet room and read. I finished a couple books, including this one. I did, however, neglect to write my book report (my bad), but in my defense, we were in Arizona and it was boiling lava hot (as you know, extreme heat is not conducive to writing).

basically Arizona

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, is the story of high school student, Meg Murry, who goes on an intergalactic mission to save her scientist father. Meg is accompanied by her little brother, Charles Wallace and their school friend, Calvin.

I'm not really into science fiction, so I found it difficult to get into the story; however, once I got to the main conflict, I came to enjoy the book quite a bit.

Recommendation level: If you've got a spare Saturday morning, why not?

*Spoilers after the break*


I was almost immediately distracted while reading this book by the tesseract. As noted above, I don't read much science fiction and my higher math is lacking, so when I read about the tesseract, I immediately thought of the Avengers/ Marvel Cosmic Cube.

Wrong tesseract

Once I got over my disappointment that Iron Man wasn't going to show up (and skimmed the Wikipedia article), I was able to focus on the book.

One thing I found particularly interesting in this book was Meg's glimpse into a Be Careful What You Wish For type of world. At the beginning of the story, Meg is described as being awkward, having braces, getting into fights with other students, being picked on by the teachers, etc. She just wants to blend in and be the same as everyone else. But when the kids get to Camazotz, they find a community completely devoid of uniqueness. On that world, everyone lives in identical houses, all the kids play at the same time and to the same rhythm, and just live the exact same lives as their neighbors. Only after Meg recognizes the evil of that place, does she begin to value her own individuality and gain confidence in her self worth.

Sister, if you have a free weekend and come across this book, check it out. Also, as you are prone to motion sickness, I would not recommend the type of travel in this book. The kids experience some pretty unpleasant symptoms.

Cheers and Happy Reading,
Brandy