A Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L'Engle (1962)
“Rejected by 26 publishers, this science-fiction fable about a misfit girl who saves the universe by loving her father became one of the most banned books in American classrooms.”
At a Glance
Meg Murry — awkward, brilliant, angry — is thirteen and failing school while her father has been missing for a year. Three mysterious women (Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which) arrive and tesser — wrinkle through space-time — Meg, her genius little brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe to the planet Camazotz, where a disembodied brain called IT holds their father captive and demands total conformity. Meg finds her father but IT seizes Charles Wallace. She realizes the one weapon IT cannot replicate or resist is love — not as sentiment, but as active, stubborn choice — and she uses it to rescue Charles Wallace and return home.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times before publication and went on to win the 1963 Newbery Medal, becoming one of the bestselling children's novels in American history with over 14 million copies sold. It is regularly cited as the book that opened science fiction and fantasy to young female readers and protagonists, and the first major children's novel to insist that science and spirituality are not only compatible but require each other.
Diction Profile
Accessible and direct, with sudden elevations into scientific or theological vocabulary at moments of greatest significance
Moderate