A Wrinkle in Time
Name of Book: A Wrinkle in Time
Author : Madeleine L’Engle
Illustrator: Taeeum Yoo (cover art)
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Audience: Ages 8 and up
Summary: This is a story about three children who fight an evil force threatening their planet. In an attempt to save Meg and Charles Wallace’s father, the two siblings and a friend, Calvin, learn about the tesseract (a wrinkle in time) and learn to tesser (travel through space) from individuals of great goodness, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Which, Mrs. Who, the Happy Medium, and Aunt Beast. Their journey leads them to a final showdown with “IT,” a dark, disembodied intelligence striving to make everyone in the universe believe and think the same.
Literary elements at work in the story: A Wrinkle in Time is a science fiction chapter book that won the Newbery Medal in 1963 and is still in print. Going on behind the science fiction action, though, is another story about the battle all human beings face to respect, defend, and love themselves.
Perspective on gender/race/culture/economics/ability: The heroine of the story is a teenager who feels very much alone. Meg Murray has braces, glasses, and flyaway hair. She can’t seem to get anything right at school and her classmates thinks she’s strange and stupid. But Meg discovers how to use the ultimate weapon to fight for her brother and for good
Scripture: *Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 4:18
Theology: There are many obvious parallels between A Wrinkle in Timeand the Bible. For example, IT is referred to as “Evil…the Powers of Darkness.” In fighting IT, the inhabitants of Ixchel are “called according to His purpose, and whom He calls, them He also justifies.” Aunt Beast also says, “…the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Faith Talk Questions:
- What was the ultimate weapon that Meg used to defeat the darkness? Name some ways that you have seen evil. How can that same weapon help you to defeat the types of evil you just named?
- IT wanted to make everyone just alike. Do you feel pressured to be like everyone else? Do you think there was a reason that God made each of us unique?
Review prepared by Kelly Hames, Union-PSCE, Charlotte campus
A Wrinkle in Time by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
