Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time – rejected by countless publishers before finally finding a home with FSG in 1962 – was a formative novel for me as a young girl. With its sympathetic heroine, the socially awkward (but mathematically savvy) Meg, the exceptionally empathetic Charles, the admittedly crushworthy Calvin, and the slew of strange immortals, science fictional dimension-jumping aspects of the novel, and, most importantly, the message of love conquering all won over my twelve-year-old heart. Like many of the 49 other bloggers on this extensive 50 blog tour (celebrating the 50 years in print of this beloved novel), A Wrinkle In Time was my literary equivalent of a gateway drug that if not began certainly added to my love of speculative fiction (and YA, and reading in general, for that matter).
We are thrilled to be a part of the tour and to focus on one of our favorite characters (well…entities) of the classic novel, IT. Because really, while Meg and Charles and Calvin are wonderful, isn’t it all about the bad guys? And what better bad guy than IT, ITself?
Regarding IT:
Exceptionally intelligent. Indescribably powerful. A formidable, disembodied telepathic brain capable of possessing all those it comes in contact with, IT is decidedly badass (in a completely evil, calculating way).
IT may also make you think of the following:
Or this:
Or this:
On a more serious note, L’Engle’s villain is so terrifying because of ITs message of brutal rationality, conformity, and the power of stone-cold logic untempered by the fruits of individuality or personality or compassion. IT’s evil is so effective and resonant because IT is so pervasive. Controlling everyone and everything on Camazotz, a fleshy, pulsating entity that forces conformity above all else, the concept of IT terrified me as a child (and a little bit today as well). And, though the book’s message is somewhat less effective today in retrospection because Good and Evil are so starkly contrasted, the message that prevails in Meg’s showdown with IT remains just as poignant today as ever: with love, with individual thought and feeling and creativity, we will prevail.
And that’s pretty cool.
50 Years, 50 Days, 50 Blogs: The Official Tour
Make sure to check out the official Facebook page, and the rest of the impressive 50 stop blog tour- here’s a list of all the participating blogs.
Week 1: Revisiting A Wrinkle In Time
January 16 -20
Biblioklept
The Compulsive Reader
Sci Fi Chick
There’s A Book
Mundie Moms
Forever Young Adult
I Swim For Oceans
The Discriminating Fangirl
The Story Siren
Steph Su Reads
Week 2: Sharing A Wrinkle In Time
January 23 – 27
Pragmatic Mom
Stiletto Storytime
The O.W.L.
Hi Miss Julie
Green Bean Teen Queen
5 Minutes For Books
A Year of Reading
Lost in the Library
Geek Mom
One Librarian’s Book Reviews
Week 3: Characters in A Wrinkle In Time
January 30 – February 3
Anna Reads
Bewitched Bookworms
Regular Rumination
Things Mean A Lot
Novel Novice
The Book Smugglers
Charlotte’s Library
Coffee and Cliffhangers
S. Krishna’s Books
Lisa the Nerd
Week 4: Expressions of A Wrinkle In Time
February 6 – February 10
Word For Teens
Fictional Food
New Cover
Textbook
Presenting Lenore
Modly Chic
The J. Sorese Visual Companion
Read. Breathe. Relax.
Book Aunt
Meg Bentley Illustration
Week 5: Reading A Wrinkle In Time for the First Time
February 13 – 17
Geek Girl’s Book Blog
The Cozy Reader
I Just Wanna Sit Here And Read
Jenn’s Bookshelves
Booking Mama
Page Turners
I Read Banned Books
YA Bibliophile
Alison’s Bookmarks
Galleysmith
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7 Responses to Celebrating 50 Years of A Wrinkle In Time
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Thank you for this wonderful look at one of my all time favorite books. I’m counting the days until I share it with my children.
I recently reread this one and almost wish I’d let the wonder of it I remembered as a child to just live on. As an adult I didn’t find it nearly as compelling – IT wasn’t scary at all to me lol! I actually found IT to be a little one dimensional and the book as a whole not nearly as developed as I remembered it to be. Still, I’m looking forward to sharing it with kidlet one day, too. It’s probably still much more appealing for the kids.
SO AMAZING. I still remember how freaked out I was when Charles Wallace succumbed to IT. I have to reread — it’s been ages. I remember loving Meg as a heroine — and it was from AWIT that I learned that you can make hot chocolate with milk instead of water, but you have to be careful so that it doesn’t get a skin on top.
More frightening than IT, for me, A WIND IN THE DOOR (right?) was the possibility of being Xed in the second book.
And the third book, A SWIFTLY TILTING PLANET, was my favorite. Charles Wallace!!!
I loved this book as a child and have reread it somewhere in the past decade as well. I recently had a chance to watch the movie version of it and while they had to tweak it a bit to account for modern technology, as a whole it was remarkably faithful to the book. Thanks for making me smile with mentioning it.
Didn’t care for the sequel book nearly so much.
Blech. Seriously over-rated. It has significant problems with pacing, plot and characterization. Meg is a charmless, irksome child. The antagonist is a cartoon. The first chapter drags on forever. I wondered whether she would EVER leave that damn attic. It would be un-publishable today.
[...] and I just read it. Little did I know it is the fiftieth anniversary of its publication. Check out the Book Smugglers list of all the bloggers who are participating. Lurv a la Mode also recently reviewed [...]
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