A Wrinkle in Time

L’Engle, Madeline. A Wrinkle in Time. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962.  Tr. $17.00, ISBN-10  0-374-38613-7

What’s it about?

The stubborn secret math whiz Meg Murry, her extraordinary little brother Charles Wallace, and their neighbor, the kind, athletic and intelligent Calvin O’Keefe band together to time-travel with three other-worldly beings, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which to  find Meg and Charles’ father Mr. Murray, a physicist who has been missing for nearly two years.  Will they find Mr. Murray, or will their dangerous journeys destroy them?

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Meg Murry is an underdog, ridiculed at school and dismissed by her teachers. She bitterly misses her father, a physicist, for almost two years, when he disappeared while working on a secret project. Her brother, Charles Wallace, is rumored to be sub-normal, since he didn’t begin to talk until he was four, but he is actually a genius with an uncanny ability to read people. The unusual boy has been making some unusual friends: mysterious old women (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which) who have taken up in the haunted house in the woods. Charles takes Meg to meet them, and the siblings encounter a boy, Calvin O’Keefe, who felt inexplicably compelled to come to the haunted house.  Calvin instantly feels connected to the Murrays, and the three band together with the ancient (try billions of years old) Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which to find Mr. Murray. The travel, of course, involves a tesseract, a wrinkle in time. Their journeys lead them to fantastic and frightening planets and beings—some that threaten to destroy them.   

A Wrinkle in Time is an intense book you’ll read with bated breath—especially when the children arrive on the planet Camazotz.  The most significant theme of the book, and one that allows the book to have a happy ending, is the power of love to vanquish the destructive nature of evil.  In A Wrinkle in Time, even beings that we think of as frightening (such as Aunt Beast) show an astonishing capacity for love. Another theme young readers will enjoy is the power of intelligence and individuality to stand against the cloying pressure to conform. L’Engle tackles these themes with breath-taking world-building, beautiful turns of phrase, and lets the events unfold through the eyes of Meg, the most ordinary character in this book—and also the bravest.

Did you know?

A side-note about this book is the difficulty L’Engle had in getting it published. She had over two dozen rejections before Farrar, Straus and Giroux agreed to publish it. The main reasons it was rejected are, interestingly, its strengths: it’s a very unique story, a complex story, a tale of fighting evil. Publishers seemed confused about whether this was a children’s book or an adult book as well.

This book is intelligent and deep, so it isn’t surprising it is on the ALA’s list of Frequently Challenged Books. Many great books end up on this list. I’m fascinated that L’Engle, who is a Christian, has had trouble with critics who, despite the positive religious and scriptural allusions (which remind me very much of C.S. Lewis’ works), think that mentioning Jesus in the same context as great artists and scientists amounts to blasphemy (even though L’Engle had Charles Wallace shout out his name first). Another reason this book has been challenged is because of references to witchcraft! This book will turn children over to the powers of darkness, just like Harry Potter! This type of “logic” makes me wonder if the critics actually bothered to read A Wrinkle in Time.  What book were they reading? Witchcraft? Witches? Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Which aren’t witches. Oh wait, Mrs. Which=Mrs. Witch. I stand corrected.

Genre: Science Fiction

Reading level: 5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 5-9

Subjects: Time travel, Extraterrestrials, Conformity, Love, Family, Good vs. Evil

Awards:

Newbery Medal (1963)

Lewis Carroll Shelf Award (1964)

Read-alikes:

Stead’s When You Reach Me

Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia

Series information:

The Time Quintet

A Wind in the Door (1973)

A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)

Many Waters (1986)

An Acceptable Time (1989)

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time

Yee, Lisa. Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time. Scholastic, 2005. Paperback $5.99, ISBN-13 978-0-439-62248-6.

What’s it about?

Stanford Wong, star basketball player, in danger of failing the sixth grade and being off the team, must miss basketball camp, take summer school and endure the humiliation of his nemesis Millicent Min tutoring him.  

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Stanford Wong is looking forward to going to a highly reputable basketball camp and being the only seventh grader to be on the A-team at school.  He feels that his life is over when his English teacher, Mr. Glick, tells him he will fail sixth grade if he doesn’t take English in summer school. As if this isn’t bad enough, Stanford must miss basketball camp to take summer school. He may even be off the basketball team if he doesn’t pass. Plus, his parents are fighting, his work-a-holic father is perpetually disappointed in him, and his beloved grandmother Yin-Yin is sent to a depressing nursing home. Could things be worse? Yes—Stanford must also suffer the indignity of being tutored by Millicent Min, a snotty eleven-year-old genius who is already taking college courses. He fears losing his friends and new girlfriend, Millicent’s friend Emily Ebers if they find out he is taking summer school. He and Millicent craft a lie that protects Stanford’s secret (that he struggle in school) and Millie’s secret (that she is a genius), but threatens their friendships with Emily.  

Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time is an accessible and funny book about a likeable under-achiever. It is not necessary to have read Millicent Min, Girl Genius to enjoy Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time, but it is hilarious to see how different the same events look to these very different protagonists. Stanford comes across as a bit of a jerk in from Millicent’s perspective, but he is far more sensitive than she imagines. He certainly doesn’t see himself as the handsome, popular big-shot he is portrayed as. Instead, Stanford always feels on edge about his social status, which wasn’t always good. He is secret stress-knitter. He watches Sesame Street with his taciturn friend Stretch (who is so self-conscious about his voice change that he never speaks.) At the same time, Stanford is a very talented athlete with a tight-knit group of friends (and a frenemy, the mean-spirited and trouble Digger).  This book may appeal more to boys, with its fart jokes and guy humor, but its humor and sensitive portrayal of Stanford will also appeal to girls.

Genre: Humor, Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Friendship Fiction

Reading level: 4^th grade 

Interest level: Grades 4-7

Subjects: School, Grades, Basketball, Family, Friends, Parental disapproval, Self-esteem, Popularity

Read-alikes:

Korman’s No More Dead Dogs

Series information:   

Millicent Min, Girl Genius

So Totally Emily Ebers 

Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

Blume, Judy. Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, 2000 (c.1977). Tr. $18.99  ISBN-10: 0689840896 ISBN-13: 978-0689840890

What’s it about? The year is 1947, and 10-year-old Sally J. Freedman is convinced that Hitler is alive—and in Miami Beach, masquerading as an old Jewish man named Mr. Zavodsky.

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Sally is a ten-year-old Jewish girl from New Jersey who spends the school year away from her father in Miami Beach because of concerns about her older brother’s health. Sally has an active imagination, and loves to tell stories to herself, stories where she plays the lead role (usually as an actress or detective hunting Hitler). She misses her father, whom she nicknames “Doey Bird” and hates her new school, which has no bathroom doors, and a mean lunch monitor. Eventually, Sally adjusts and makes new friends. There is a dark shadow looming over Sally, though, and this is the specter of the Holocaust, which took the lives of her cousin Lila and aunt Rose.  Many of her fantasies feature the Holocaust, and when she suddenly realizes that her neighbor Mr. Zavodsky bears a resemblance to Hitler, she begins to believe he actually is Hitler in disguise, hiding in plain sight. 

This is a rich, often humorous novel with underlying dark tones. In many respects, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself is an even stronger offering from Blume than her better known Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. While Sally doesn’t go through the same soul searching as Margaret does, this book explores serious topics such as the Holocaust through the eyes of a child touched by loss, though in a removed way.  Sally’s understanding of adults is touchingly naïve. When the sixteen-year-old daughter of her neighbors, who are Orthodox Jews, becomes pregnant, Sally is confused. “Buts she’s not married,” she points out. The book her mother gave her to explain sex presented pregnancy as something that only occurred between married couples. There are plenty of moments when older readers will see more to the situation than Sally does, although younger tweens may also misunderstand things like paying under the table.

Another serious topic, though dealt with in a removed way as well, is segregation. Sally grew up in New Jersey, and doesn’t understand why there are two different drinking fountains. She took a drink from a “colored” drinking fountain and was yanked away by a strange woman. Sally writes to her father, asking if black and white people have different germs or something. He responds by saying that he thinks people have more similarities than differences, and that the North isn’t much better than the South. In the North segregation was just more subtle than in the South, which was very candid about its racism. 

One criticism I have about this book, which is otherwise amazing, is the non-stop overuse of ellipses in conversations. I understand that Blume is trying to convey conversational pauses on the page, but readers already do this mentally, don’t they? It’s a stylistic complaint. . . . but it drives me nuts! . . . . I adore this book . . . so I can overlook this flaw. . .  

Genre: Historical Fiction, Friendship Fiction, Humor

Reading level: 4^th-5^th grade

Interest level: Grades 4-7

Subjects: Jewish-Americans, Moving, Friendship, Story-telling, Imagination

Read-alikes:

Yee’s So Totally Emily Ebers

Cleary’s Emily’s Runaway Imagination

Characters:

Sally J. Freedman—the imaginative protagonist, a 10-year-old storyteller

Arnold Freedman, aka Doey-Bird—Sally’s beloved dentist father

Louise Freedman—Sally’s anxious and neurotic mother

Douglas Freedman—Sally’s genius, loner brother whose health is fragile

Ma Fanny—Sally’s witty grandmother

Andrea—Sally’s close friend who lives in the same apartment complex; she is in 6^th grade and acts as though she is light years older than Sally, who is just a year younger

Georgia Blue Eyes—Andrea’s crush

Peter Hornstein—Teases Sally mercilessly, but Sally eventually realizes she likes him

Mr Zavodsky—Sally thinks he is not a nice, older Jewish man, but Adolf Hitler in disguise