Editorial Review
It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.
"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."
A tesseract (in case the reader doesn't know) is a wrinkle in time. To tell more would rob the reader of the enjoyment of Miss L'Engle's unusual book. A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures in space and time of Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe (athlete, student, and one of the most popular boys in high school). They are in search of Meg's father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract problem.
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Customer Reviews
A Wrinkle in Time 
2007-04-25
Everyone in the Murray household is impatiently awaiting the father's return. He had mysteriously disappeared while experimenting with 5th dimension time traveling. Both Mr. and Mrs. Murray are intelligent scientists. The book is about how two of their four children and their friend travel light years through time to save their father. Meg, the oldest and only sister in the family, finds it difficult to conceal her anxiety for her father. To support her and get her through life, she spends a lot of time with her brother, Charles Wallace. The two of them always had a tenacious bond. Charles Wallace is very bright, but is inexplicably known as the "dumb baby brother." Sandy and Dennys are twins at ten years old. Meg once overheard, "The twin brothers seem to be nice, regular children, but that unattractive girl and the baby boy certainly aren't all there."
Meg also has a friend named Calvin O'Keefe. He is a smart, popular basketball player a couple of grades above Meg. He and three witches help Meg and Charles Wallace try to find their father. These witches' names are Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. They are all helpful and unique in their own ways. Maybe a little too unique. Are they smart enough to keep the three children unharmed?
With these interesting characters and a page-turning plot, there's no way you can miss this Newbery Medal book! As you are reading, you come up with questions such as, what does "tesseract" mean? Or, Will everyone come home safely? How does Meg learn to overcome her weakness to save her brother? Also, ask more questions when you read A Wrinkle in Time's sequel, A Wind in the Door and the rest of the series. [...].
A Wrinkle in Time Review 
2007-03-16
The Murrys are often gossiped about since the disappearance of Mr.Murry whom disappeared when Charels Wallace was just a baby (Charles Wallace is the youngest of four children).Charels Wallace is a unique boy and many people think he is a dumb and never learned how to talk when he is really in a way a genius .Margret Murry (Meg) is Charles Wallace's older sister and is the youngest of the four Murry children. Meg is doing poorly in school and is upset because of her "plainness". Eventually Charles Wallace,Meg and Calvin O'Keefe go on a crazy galactic adventure with the help of Mrs.Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which and their ability to tesser.
A Wrinkle in Time is an exciting and creative story that definitely deserves the Newbery Medal. The only problems in the story were that some of the characters were hard to believe and a few things were hard to understand but all in all it was a great book.
6th grader from WI
Wonderful!!! 2007-03-12
I've loved this book since I was a kid. Now I can listen to it while I'm walking in the mornings.
A Good Book 2007-02-27
As an amazing adventure of science fiction and fantasy, I'm sure that this book was made to entertain people, and what a good job it does! You will not want to put this book down! This book has great description that will allow you to picture Calvin, Meg, and Charles Wallace flying through space. It helped me understand the dimensions that I did not understand before I read it!! I highly recommend this book and I encourage readers to read this.
Award Winning Mediocrity 
2007-02-26
When I was in grade school, I tended to avoid anything with awards for excellence in children's literature. I was still trusting enough to assume they must be good, but had a general sense that they might not be much fun.
Having just read "Wrinkle in Time" for the first time as an adult, I realize that I was right to suspect it would not be much fun, and wrong about it being any good. The characters seem contrived and not very likeable, the science phony, the fantasy slipshod. There is certainly stuff here that may excite the imagination of a child, but nothing that plenty of other authors have not done a whole lot better.
L'Engle's explanation of a "tesseract" is all wrong -- the word really refers simply to a 4-dimensional counterpart of a cube. Except for it's being extra dimensional, a tesseract has nothing to do with the notion of taking extra-dimensional shortcuts to distant locations in 3-dimensional space (a tesseract has no curves, as are required for L'Engle's short-cut setup). I guess it is good that L'Engle tries to explain the idea of extra dimensions to kids, but since she scarcely seems to understand them herself, I'm not sure what good she does. Personally, I am glad that, as a child, I missed out on her attempts to confuse matters.
Stripped of scientific pretensions, the story is just a fairy tale about a trio of kids who get wisked off by powerful supernatural beings to alien planets to do battle with a force of Cosmic Evil, and in the meantime hopefully rescue their missing father. The Evil Force, when we meet it, is certainly creepy enough, but all the goings on seem random and arbitrary, and nothing makes much sense. Supernatural happenings and events simply intervene whenever the author needs them to. Meanwhile, these extraterrestrial adventures mirror the main heroine's (Meg's) trouble with her difficulty fitting in at school.
I was mildly surprised at how overt the Christian religious references were. I have nothing against this, being a big C.S. Lewis fan (even Lewis was more subtle, however), but I certainly do not recall the Narnia books being pushed on us in public school. I guess the political explanation for this is that, while the book carries enough religious quotations and obvious name-dropping to please certain Christian parents, the author has so little to say, in applying these principles to the real world, that there is nothing for secularists to get upset about. It is shallow flag-waving - devoid of real substance. Meanwhile, the story clearly portrays science and scientists as Good (Meg's parents are both genius physicists), so that, as bad as L'Engle's science is, secularists (and people who think kids books should be educational) are pacified with a few meatless bones as well.
In the end, the only real moral message is one of tolerance and diversity. Cosmic Evil is identified with the desire to force all children to be the same, to try to force them all into a single mold. Oh yeah, and various people get saved by the power of Love. Nothing to get upset about, but nothing to get excited about either.
A Wrinkle In Time 
2008-06-05
I purchased the audio of A Wrinkle In Time for my classroom - I use it for my special needs students and also for students who have missed class while we read together (it is a quick way to catch up). I was excited to hear Madeline L'Engle read the story, but my students found her voice a bit tedious. My colleague and I have used this story as a science fiction genre unit for several years - the students love it!
The battle between good and evil. 2008-05-30
I have often heard people comment about how good this book is, but I've never taken the time to read it before now. I can't say that I was mislead. This is a highly imaginative tale of good vs. evil, told from the point of view of young Meg Murry. Meg is smart but rebellious, fiercely protective of her unusual family. She and her brother, Charles Wallace, are about to go on a journey through space and time to find their long absent father, and in the process, confront an evil so powerful that it threatens to engulf them all.
Written with vivid imagery, this story is a fantasy wrapped inside some of the conventional trappings of science-fiction. Along the way, we consider the nature of evil, how it robs people of their individuality and choice. In the end, discovering the one thing evil can't do will be the key to Meg's victory.
Not a Fighter 2008-03-11
I re-read this book from my childhood and I'm very disappointed with particular messages Madeleine presents to children. I think enough has been said about stars (angels?) being conceived as witches to "play a joke" on everyone and the centaur appearance of the other "angels". No matter what the rest of the story conveys, I am completely revulsed by the notion she presents that Jesus was a fighter. He is not a fighter, but represents peace & love spreading the word of the Father on this earth for all to follow. Also, Jesus has already won the battle for us. All of these ignorant statements in this book by Madeleine need to be pulled before I will even think about looking at this book or sharing it with others.
Not Free SF Reader 2007-09-03
A book for children, but not too bad for that. A bored girl, her brothers and others get mixed up in an adventure across the space-time continuum by way of some nifty tesseract tricks.
When a strange older woman comes visiting they set off to find the father of all these children, who is a prisoner of one of your standard supervillains, a giant disembodied telepathic brain.
Such a good book 2007-05-04
This has been one of my all-time favorite books since I first read it as a girl. It is excellent reading for elementary school children, but also fun for adults. Highly recommended!
