Now introducing Retro Review, where I review books from the past.  Books aren’t like technology; they don’t become obsolete after time.  Dive in to discover great reads you might not have known about.

Verdict: A classic, that you should have read, like yesterday

Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is a classic of children’s literature, staring one of the first heroines of sci-fi.  Young Meg Murry is struggling.  Her scientist father left to work on a top-secret government project, and the Murry family hasn’t heard from him in months.  Meg is an outcast at school, where teachers accuse her of using her father’s disappearance to justify bad grades.  Classmates mock her.  Even at home, Meg feels like she doesn’t fit in with her brilliant family, despite her scientist mother’s assurances that Meg is a late bloomer.  One dark and stormy night, a strange visitor drops by the Murry house.  This visitor, Ms. Whatsit, leads Meg on an epic journey to rescue her father from a hostile force on an alien planet.

Meg is not your typical main character.  Right from the first chapter, her flaws are on display.  She is pessimistic, belligerent, and sulking.  Meg’s faults are precisely what makes A Wrinkle in Time such a challenging book.  She struggles to cope with events on the adventure, unlike her five year-old brother, Charles Wallace, and the classmate that accompany her.  Meg fails to live up to our expectations of what a heroine should be.  Yet, traits she considers her flaws are precisely what allow her to triumph over intergalactic evil.  She’s no chosen one who is unrealistically equipped to fight the good fight—she’s a real person, choosing to fight even though she is afraid.

A Wrinkle in Time also challenges children to think about the world.  The central theme of the book is love versus conformity and control.  Meg and Charles Wallace are mocked because they seem different from others.  On the alien planet where their father is held captive, people are forced to behave alike under threat of punishment.  The only way to fight conformity and control is through love, which wills the good of the other, allowing the other to be his or herself.

L’Engle’s most famous novel is a fantastic tale for middle-grade readers, and for that matter, kids of all ages.  Even the ones who are a bit more chronologically advanced.

Know what your kid is reading: A Wrinkle in Time doesn’t have “mature” content, though it contains mature discussions of emotions and interpersonal relationships.

Know what your kid is reading allows parents to identify mature themes topics of conversation to have with their children after reading the book, and determine whether the book is suitable for their children.  It does not imply a personal endorsement or lack of endorsement, and is simply meant to be informative.