A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Rebecca Stead’s 2010 Newberry Medal for When You Reach Me sent me scurrying to read Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time; the latter being the inspiration for the former. A Wrinkle in Time was published in 1962 and is oft-cited as one of the best children’s books of the last century. I think I should have read it when I was twelve, and I should hold my tongue until my own daughters are old enough to read it and put me to rights. I may set off a blog-storm if I admit to having found it rambling. I wasn’t the least offended by its pseudo scientific / spiritual wackiness unlike some small-minded school boards, and you’ve got to admire a children’s novelist who tackles both love and physics, but I found its dearth of solid scene-setting, its helterskelter pacing and its skittering dialogue disorienting. It’s the book equivalent of a speeding harpsichord.