Letters to the Editor
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A great lady and writer will be missed!
I first read the words of Madeleine L'Engle in 5th grade. I found A Wrinkle In Time in our school library and I LOVED IT! It probably was one of my first fantasy and science fiction books, a genre that I read now 35+ years later. She put such bold concepts into her childrens' fiction that it facinated me and made me think about time travel, space travel and magic as science or vice versa. Later as an adult, I discovered the sequels and read them... and some of her other books for adults too. I bought a 4-in-1 edition of A Wrinkle & its 3 sequels to give to my 10 year old niece. I hope she loves it as much as I do! Good bye Madeleine, you will be missed and your books are part of the classics like the OZ books, the Hobbit & Lord of the Rings, Narnia books and many others in the children/youth fantasy genre. Harry Potter is just the latest in a long line to catch the imagination of young & older readers... I hope they all find A Wrinkle In Time too. As its truely a CLASSIC as was its author!
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Yes to Madeline
Love what she did. Peace to you, Meg.
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Thank you...
When I was 10 I would climb up on our roof to be alone and read and re-read (am oldest of 9 and privacy and quiet were a major luxury). I read and re-read her stories until the books fall apart and then I replace them. Last night I listened to her read A Wrinkle in Time on my Ipod. I'm 45 now - I did not realize she was 89 already - she seemed timeless. Thank you for honoring her memory in this article.
Di
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how sad...
...that I didn't hear about this all weekend...
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Being a "Sport"
I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was not quite 9 years old; that was the year we moved (the only time) from one town to another, and also the year I took both third and fourth grades.
More than just about anything else, that book shaped the person I am today. As Charles Wallace was termed a "sport" in the genetic sense of being not quite a mutation, but not quite the dominant gene combination, so am I, and I adopted that designation almost immediately upon discovering it. The oldest sibling, I was already feeling deeply "other" as a small child - the one who could never do anything right and who drove everyone crazy asking "why?" So I clutched Charles Wallace and the rest of the Wrinkle cast and concepts close - and allowed myself to be what I was, instead of trying to force myself into the family mold.
I hope the afterlife for Ms. L'Engle is everything she imagined it could be.
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Ditto to all of you
Forty years after I first read it, A Wrinkle in Time remains one of my all-time favorite books, and one of the few "children's" books on that list.
To this day, I measure "adult" science fiction against Wrinkle. Very, very few can match it in imagination and sophistication.
Rest in peace, Madame - you may not have been famous enough to make the weekend news shows, but your legacy is secure and immortal in the love and gratitude of your readers.
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good memory
I was fortunate enough to see Madeline speak at Smith about ten years ago when I was in college. I remember the girl I met on the bus and I discovered we were going to the same destination and we were surprised to discover we both had similar memories of all ME's books. The auditorium was so packed, we couldn't see her from our seats, but she definitely made an impression when she spoke.
People of my generation usually identify Judy Blume or Norma Klein as authors who helped them learn about teen issues, but I would put Madeline L'Engle up there, too. In the pre-Internet era, it was much more likely that we'd learn about things like homosexuality, drug abuse, and family dysfunction from books. And I still harbor a desire to swim with dolphins someday, thanks to the description in "A Ring of Endless Light."
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a wind in the door...
She filled my childhood imagination with the wonders of space and time travel, the beauty of family and relationships. One of my dearest friends in grad school once commented that L'Engle was also a true feminist: "She taught me that girls could do science."
L'Engle's legacy as one of the most significant fantasy writers for children (and I would argue adults) is firm and concrete; I believe she added as much to the genre as major earlier writers such as Lewis, et al. Her innovations were true and genuine and with so much imitative fantasy writing out there her books were marvelously *new.*
Best of all for me -- a searching Catholic in my youth -- she articulated a gently beautiful, universe-conscious Christianity that was the only to make sense to me (then and now). With the single exception of Richard Adams' Watership Down, her books taught me more - gave me more -- about spirituality, goodness, sacrifice, and love than any church teachings.
I had always hoped to meet Ms. L'Engle. Instead, I must hope that there is an afterlife and that she is reunited with her husband, to whom she was devoted until he died tragically of cancer. We will miss you and the world is less bright without you.
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I didn't know she passed away. :(
I loved her children's books when I was little, made me challenge myself learning about the advanced physics concepts like tesseracts, other dimensions, and stuff. A Wrinkle in Time might even be the source of my interest in these ideas and the reason I'm an electrical engineer now. (which I go back and forth on, cursing and praising).
Here's to ya, Madeleine L'Engle. Well done.
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Shame on me....
I don't know how I managed to make it through childhood without doing so, but I have never read A Wrinkle in Time. In fact, the only book of hers that I've read is The Arm of the Starfish (when I was 12 or so?). I can't remember the book at all anymore, and even perusing reviews at Amazon doesn't trigger much. What I do remember, though, is that the book stayed with me for years! Something about it haunted me long after the details faded.
Luckily, my daughters will be old enough--in a few years--to dive into the L'Engle library themselves.