John Yowan Hour
1
Ms. Keeley Type
3
Freshman English
17, November 2002
Title
A Wrinkle In Time
Author: Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle was born in 1918, and is still living. She was married to Hugh Franklin until he died in 1986. They had three children, Josephine, Maria, and Bion. Her mother was also named Madeleine, and was a pianist. Her father, Charles Wadsworth, was an actor, author, and foreign correspondent. She went to Smith College in 1941, and moved to the New School for Social Research during 1941 and 1942. After that, she went to Columbia University for graduate school. Madeleine L'Engle's religion is Anglican. She was unaccepted as a little girl, and moved between boarding schools often. Her mother and father often fought for control over her, and her father mostly won. She was pampered as an English girl during her childhood. This led her to write stories about young people trying to fit in. Her boarding school experience prompted her to write about loving families.
Some other books that were written by
Madeleine L'Engle are A Wind in the Door,
Many Waters,
An Acceptable Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Dragons in the
Waters, The Twenty-Four Days Before
Christmas, The Moon by Night, and
Meet the Austin's.
The most important characters in A Wrinkle In Time are Charles Wallace, Meg, Calvin, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which.
The book A Wrinkle In Time starts during a stormy night. Meg a thirteen-year-old girl could not get to sleep because she had been thinking about her father who has been missing for about a year so she goes downstairs where she finds her younger brother Charles Wallace. After a bit her mother also came downstairs and she and Meg decided to make something to eat. While eating the food they hear a knock on the door, it's an old lady. The old ladies name is Mrs. Whatsit; she is an acquaintance of Charles Wallace who lives in a house in the woods with her two friends. Megs mother talks to her for a bit and then Mrs. Whatsit leaves and Meg and her mother go back to bed.
After school the next day Meg and Charles Wallace go to Mrs. Wharsit's house. Along the way they meet a fourteen-year-old boy named Calvin. Calvin had a feeling that he had to come into the woods and go to the house. The house was very creepy and looked like it could be a haunted house Once inside they meat another lady named Mrs. Who.
After a talking to Mrs. Who for a while they went home. Later that same night Calvin, Meg, Charles Wallace, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and another old lady named Mrs. Which meet outside. All of the sudden they all disappear and end up on a different planet where Mrs. Whatsit changes into something that is not human. She shows them a dark thing in space. Then Mrs. Whatsit explained to them how they ended up on the different planet. They Tessered, which means they took a short cut in space to get to the other planet. The group then Tessered to another planet where they went to a cave and met another old lady. She shows them Earth with the dark thing covering it. Meg learned that they were on a quest to save her father. Her father was on a planet far away.
After talking about going to find Megs father they Tessered to the planet where her Dad was. On this planet there was a city, all the houses in the city looked the same. Children were playing outside, some were playing ball and others were skipping rope. As the balls hit the ground the ropes would hit the ground, they were in perfect symmetry with each other. Then all the mothers called their kids in at exactly the same time and they all looked alike aside from their clothes. One child dropped their ball by accident, but the others acted like it didn't even happen. All of the children went inside at exactly the same time and all the doors on the houses closed at the same time. Charles Wallace picked up the ball that the one child had dropped and knocked on the door of the house that the child had went into. When the mother answered the door and Charles Wallace told her what had happened she told him that there hadn't been any mistakes like that in three years. Charles Wallace reached past the mother and handed the ball to the child. As soon as he withdrew his arm she slammed the door shut.
Charles Wallace, Meg, and Calvin asked a person where the Central Intelligence building was. Once they found out where it was they went there. Once inside they saw It. It is the person that controls the dark thing that covers Earth and many other planets. Then It turned Charles Wallace into an evil person. Charles Wallace then tried to attack Meg and Calvin, but they were able to escape from him. After her escape from Charles Wallace and It, Meg was able to find her father and free him. Megs Dad helped to get Charles Wallace back from It's power.
The book ends with Meg, Charles Wallace, their Father and Calvin returning to Earth to reunite with Meg and Charles Wallace's Mother.
A Wrinkle In Time is a Science Fiction book. I chose this book because it looked interesting and fun to read. Another reason that I chose this book is because I had not read a science fiction book in a long time. I liked how the author was able to explain all of the scientific things in the book, like the Tesseract. I liked everything that happened in the book and how everything made sense. There is nothing that I did not like about this book. I would highly recommend this book to other people who enjoy science fiction books.
Meg the main character in the book finds out that she is a stronger person that she thought she was. At the beginning she was a meek person. Storms would even scare her. By the end of the book she was a lot more confidante in herself and not afraid of anything. Meg learned that she could do anything if she just put her mind to it.
I think the ending is appropriate and believable because they saved their father and everyone lived. I am very satisfied with the ending. It could have ended with them not being able to save their father but then the book would not have been as good.
The settings suite the plot of the book because it takes place on many planets and it would not have been as good if it had taken place on only one planet. One example of the setting suiting the plot of the book is when they went to the planet where their father was. The setting there was very strange. If it had been a normal setting it would not had made sense with the people acting so strange. This story occurs when and where it does because that is the way the author intended it to be.