Thank you Madeleine L'Engle!

Madeleine L'Engle passed away yesterday. I read about it today in boing boing and wanted to post a few thoughts about A Wrinkle in Time and its impact on my life.

I was in grade seven at Hillcrest school when a kind school librarian recommended it to me. From the first page, I was lost in the book... the science fantasy, the heroic mission of rescuing the dad... and the battle with evil. (I really thought Meg was cool and wanted a girlfriend like her someday!)

And I thought the witches were brilliant. A few years ago, I gave a copy to my daughter and she read it and said it was ok, but it didn't seem to grab her. Last fall, I took the book off the shelf and suggested that I read it to Ben. Hannah commented about the book and I asked her if she had finished it. Hannah said that she had found it freaky at times. She still had a vivid picture of the street with the children bouncing their balls in unison. She found the concept very unnerving (as I still do) and she liked the flight on the centaur but the book was quite scary at the end. Ben jumped at the chance to read a book with centaurs but he wasn't too keen on being frightened. Centaurs won out and we worked our way through the book. Ben gives it an 8 out of 10.

A Wrinkle In Time is in the libraries of almost 6,000 members at LibraryThing. It is currently the 63rd most popular book there.

Madeleine L'Engle... thank you for never giving up (despite over forty rejections letters). Thank you for persevering and sharing so much humour, strength and hope with generations of readers!