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A Wind in the Door (Time, #2)
by Madeleine L'Engle
When I was in fourth grade, I was in a reading group at my school. We read A Wrinkle in Time, and it was one of the first great books that I had read up to that point. The librarian recommended the other two books in the series to us, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to read them. I had figured out that, mostly (exceptions: anything planned as a trilogy beforehand, Star Wars V, Toy Story 2 and 3), sequels were a cheap attempt to cash in on the success of the original without value of their own.
I can't say that that's how I would describe A Wind in the Door, but it's definitely no Wrinkle in Time.
The story follows the family from the original, the Murrays. Oldest sister Meg is concerned about her youngest brother Charles Wallace, who seems to be becoming sickly and weak for no reason and is starting to hallucinate about dragons.
Or so she thinks.
The story flows smoothly, thanks to the amazing prose of L'Engle, from the Murray's yard to Charles Wallace's school to a space outside of time to the smallest part of a mitochondria, with all these things linked perfectly with an overarching storyline that keeps it from feeling like a collection of vignettes. In fact, the storyline itself is amazing.
Clearly, plot is not the problem.
The problem, from how I see it, is the minimal development of the new concepts that this volume introduces. Of course, the book would have to be at least twice as long to fully develop the new ideas, which is a trade-off that few would have made. There's a ton of new concepts here, and just not enough story for all of them.
Another problem is that the plot, while very good, just isn't as close to the Monomyth (a.k.a. the Hero's Journey) as A Wrinkle in Time was. While this isn't necessarily a problem (A Swiftly Tilting Planet ventured far enough away from the Journey to have a novel storyline of its own), A Wind in the Door seems to be stuck in between two structures that could have made it great instead of very good: it doesn't push the boundaries far enough to be unique, but it doesn't stick close enough to be great.
by Madeleine L'Engle
Micah's review
Jul 09, 10
Recommended to Micah by:
A friend
Recommended for:
People who liked A Wrinkle in Time but aren't expecting the same quality from the sequel
Read from June 01 to July 01, 2010, read count: 1
When I was in fourth grade, I was in a reading group at my school. We read A Wrinkle in Time, and it was one of the first great books that I had read up to that point. The librarian recommended the other two books in the series to us, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to read them. I had figured out that, mostly (exceptions: anything planned as a trilogy beforehand, Star Wars V, Toy Story 2 and 3), sequels were a cheap attempt to cash in on the success of the original without value of their own.
I can't say that that's how I would describe A Wind in the Door, but it's definitely no Wrinkle in Time.
The story follows the family from the original, the Murrays. Oldest sister Meg is concerned about her youngest brother Charles Wallace, who seems to be becoming sickly and weak for no reason and is starting to hallucinate about dragons.
Or so she thinks.
The story flows smoothly, thanks to the amazing prose of L'Engle, from the Murray's yard to Charles Wallace's school to a space outside of time to the smallest part of a mitochondria, with all these things linked perfectly with an overarching storyline that keeps it from feeling like a collection of vignettes. In fact, the storyline itself is amazing.
Clearly, plot is not the problem.
The problem, from how I see it, is the minimal development of the new concepts that this volume introduces. Of course, the book would have to be at least twice as long to fully develop the new ideas, which is a trade-off that few would have made. There's a ton of new concepts here, and just not enough story for all of them.
Another problem is that the plot, while very good, just isn't as close to the Monomyth (a.k.a. the Hero's Journey) as A Wrinkle in Time was. While this isn't necessarily a problem (A Swiftly Tilting Planet ventured far enough away from the Journey to have a novel storyline of its own), A Wind in the Door seems to be stuck in between two structures that could have made it great instead of very good: it doesn't push the boundaries far enough to be unique, but it doesn't stick close enough to be great.
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