Madeleine L’Engle’s A WRINKLE IN TIME – Fiftieth Anniversary.

4 Comments

1. Anonymous

   January 31, 2012 at 11:40 am

   I read Wrinkle for the first time in 2nd or 3rd grade, and have read it at least a dozen times since.  Wrinkle led me into other of Madeleine’s works, including the Arm of the Starfish which I did a book project on in 3rd grade, which included writing a letter to Madeleine (she wrote back, and the brief letter typed and signed on a promotional brochure is one of my prized possessions).  Madeleine’s non-fiction works were a comfort to me in a crisis of faith in college and the years following, but my love for her work led me to creating the BONASTRA email discussion group on her work, through which I would meet my wife.   ~Chris Smith

2. Bhansbrough

   January 31, 2012 at 12:01 pm

   The school librarian came to get me and handed me the brand new book. This is one you will like, she said. I read it and read it again and again. There are three books that have changed the course of my thinking and this was the first one. I tried to name my daughter Meg, until one day she insisted on being called Margaret. As I studied English and science and finally theology, “a Wrinkle in Time” was always an internalized reference. When my Margaret was in the hospital for months at the age of 8, we read this book and then found a tape of the author reading it. We would fall asleep listening to Madeleine read to us, the completely disturbing and comforting words of her book. I read this book exactly 50 years ago because a librarian thought it was the book for me. Yep, significant does not begin to describe its influence in my life.

3. Katharine

   January 31, 2012 at 4:40 pm

   In 1997, when my husband was 28 and I was 4 months pregnant with our second child, he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  As he went through his chemotherapy sessions, lost his hair, started dropping weight, and landed in the hospital with a perforated ulcer, I felt more helpless and more angry each week. 
   At that point, I hadn’t read WiT in probably 10 years.  But, while I was being absolutely furious with my lack of control over the situation  (it was the day my husband came home with his chest covered with black sharpie marker that the doctors had drawn to show where to direct the radiation the next morning at his appointment) that something flashed into my memory about IT being glad as Meg got angrier and angrier when she was trying to rescue Charles Wallace.  I dug out my book and skimmed though the 2nd half until I found the scene.  And, I decided that something I could do was to treat that tumor as another IT.  If love was the only thing Meg had that IT didn’t have, then I decided I could attack the tumor the same way.  I tried to think about loving him and searing that #$%@^&% thing at the same time. I didn’t tell my husband about it, because I believed he’d decide that I had gone bonkers from the stress. 
    I don’t know if it actually did my husband any good.  But, the action made me less angry all of the time and also made me feel like I was moving forward rather than just standing still.  And, he’s still here and fine 15 years later.  -Kat

4. Debra K. Bullock

   January 31, 2012 at 9:17 pm

   This is the first (only?) book I ever remember my family discussing at the dinner table. My older brother “had” to read it in junior high and was actually enjoying it.  I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to read it to! Ever since that first reading, I’ve been fascinated by the Tesseract ever since and use it as a description of God time all the time in children’s sermons!