The Wrinkle in Time Quintet - Boxed Set

Time Quintet #1-5

by Madeleine L'Engle

The Time Quintet consists of A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. The digest box set features the art of Taeeun Yoo.

A Wrinkle in Time is one of the most significant novels of our time. This fabulous, ground-breaking science-fiction and fantasy story is the first of five in the Time Quintet series about the Murry family.

A Wind in the Door—When Charles Wallace falls ill, Meg, Calvin, and their teacher, Mr. Jenkins, must travel inside C.W. to make him well, and save the universe from the evil Echthros.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet—The Murry and O'Keefe families enlist the help of the unicorn, Gaudior, to save the world from imminent nuclear war.

Many Waters—Meg Murry, now in college, time travels with her twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys, to a desert oasis that is embroiled in war.

An Acceptable Time—While spending time with her grandparents, Alex and Kate Murry, Polly O'Keefe wanders into a time 3,000 years before her own.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Young Adult, Science Fiction, Classics, Childrens, Science Fiction Fantasy

1400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had never read these books when I was a kid, but had noticed them on many "must read" lists. Good beginner books for science fiction, but not really my cup of tea.

[Dave Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book first came on my radar several months ago when a woman in our church small group mention it. I was intrigued as I’ve found very few Christian sci-fi books. I put this on my Amazon wish list and my sister gave it to me for Christmas. Thanks Sis!

When my Facebook published the announcement that I started reading this quintet, one of my co-workers told me that he remembered having it read to his 3rd grade class. Wow! I thought that this is advanced, mind-bending stuff for 3rd grade. He also said that he was going to read it again. L’Engle truly created a remarkable work to span such an age group. If you are considering reading these stories, don’t dismiss them because they are often classified as “childrens.” She handles some advanced concepts (e.g. relativity, Heisenberg principle, DNA) in her storylines and had a real gift for her easy-to-understand descriptions of these esoteric concepts.

The stories themselves involve sci-fi staples such as time-travel, faster-than-light travel to galaxies, unicorns, and even shrinking down to the size of a DNA component reminiscent of Fantastic Voyage. There are also Christian themes sprinkled throughout with (usually) very subtle scripture insertions. Goodreaders usually do not put these books within the Christian shelves as the main focus of these plots emphasizes good versus evil rather than evangelism. Likewise, Christian readers should not dismiss these works because L’Engle inserts icons associated with pagans or new age such as Druids, unicorns, et al.

L’Engle does an ok job of describing the setting of the story. She tends to follow a Jane Austin paradigm of emphasizing the interaction between the characters. She is not as minimalist in her environmental renditions as Ms. Austin, however. My one-star knock is that I think that her characters spend a little too much time talking and too little time doing.

I found these very entertaining books with an astonishingly broad appeal. She covers far-reaching subjects in sufficient depth to satisfy die-hard sci-fi/fantasy consumers without leaving younger, less-educated, less sci-fi-inclined readers behind.

[Bobbi Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really relieved to be done with these. I can't say I've enjoyed much of the trip. It looks like 2 of the books were pretty good, one was terrible, and two were ok. The Murrays seem to be bound for trouble of the most ridiculous kind. I think L'Engle probably really enjoyed pre-Tolkein fantasy. The dream-sequence/acid trip garbage that seems to have been standard for "fantasy" before someone thought adding a plot to the fantastic might be helpful for enjoyment. I mean.. were the drugs better when she was writing these than they are, these days?
Cosmic centaurs, pegasi, angels, demons, faster than light space travel, time travel, some kind of a healing cocoon?!, miniature mammoths, giant birds, inland dolphins, the mother-fucking sentient mitochondria, and a bunch of supposedly precocious but mostly obnoxious kids all sort of jumbled together and pulled out of the mix all bingo style.
Madeleine L'Engle appears to have known some words that were scientific, and maybe some of the stuff she threw into these books was breaking news at the time. It needs to be understood by the reader that her understanding of the scientific world appears to have been extremely sketchy. She knew just enough to make it weird, not enough to make it gel.
Final word? I guess I have this to say for the series, now that it's all done: at least I don't need to take hallucinogenics to experience a bad trip. I can check that one off the list...

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great series of books

wrinkle in time: "an epic story of adventure, for the plain and the simple child.. i read it in fourth grade, and so is my daughter.... so we are re reading it together. it teaches children about Propaganda and its miss use"
Wind In the Door Way: How megan and Charles were able to save a magical world from distruction.
Swiftly tilting planet: the story of Charles and how a poem allows him to learn a process to save the world.
Many waters : The twin brothers have an adventures that crosses time and allows them to help Noah save his people.
an acceptiable time: The Neice of Megan has a problem, and a legacy to up hold.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite stories. It’s neither YA nor Adult but just is.

A story so rich that you forget you’re reading. Characters you relate to, characters you love and hate.

A Wrinkle in Time follows Meg Murry, an insecure but deeply loving girl who grows into her courage.
Through time travel and the battle between good and evil, L’Engle explores individuality in a way that resonates with all ages.
Guided by the wise and whimsical Mrs. W’s, the story emphasizes love and self-acceptance as powerful forces against darkness.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The joy and love were so tangible that Meg felt that if she only knew where to reach she could touch it with her bare hands.”

Took me a while to pick this back up and then I almost sobbed walking to work listening to the ending. Wish I had read this to my little brother when he was a baby.

[Kate Huber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have only read book 1. It is a great story and allows you to think deeper about certain issues and gifts that we humans have!

It is only through love and vulnerability that we overcome darkness

[Circle of Hope Pastors · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Wrinkle in Time tells the tale of Meg Murry, her family and a trio of celestial beings who travel through time and space in order to rescue Meg’s scientist father, Charles, from evil forces on a distant planet.

Although written in 1962, many themes remain relevant - teen insecurity, abandonment, the strength of love. A Wrinkle in Time gave us a science nerd heroine, an assumption that kids/ adolescents could understand intelligent writing, and a dip into fantasy/science fiction that was ahead of its time. -- Tammy Werron

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know I'm outside the target age group for this book, so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. I've heard for YEARS how enthralling and spectacular this series is, how it was so imaginative and beautiful, etc. I was unimpressed; to me the narrative is not nearly as complex as it was made out to be, and the metaphors and philosophy weren't so much deep, as heavy handed. It was finely executed, and not a bad read, but the 5 books in the series, read after one another, become tedious because they are so formulaic. Overall probably best if you stick to the first two for your kids. Adults reading them trying to "recapture" the magic might end up tainting their nostalgia.

[Rena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to this set on audiobooks downloaded from iTunes. Only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 was not appreciating the prolific biblical overtures. I'd forgotten how much was in these books. Funny how the author who wrote the "the golden compass" got blasted for atheist stuff, but the children's books full of Christian mythology are left alone. Im open minded about all belief systems, so I'm not affected but in these books I felt it detracted rather than added to the beauty of the stories.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and much too religious

I only read this book because of the pressure and the hype. Not worth it. At all. And also, I'm an atheist, and along with other atheists, I don't like the book. I recommend it for religious people who like reading Madame L'Engle's books. Nobody else.

[Linda Ensor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this quintet years ago when my children were young, and I fell in love with L'Engle's imagination and her storytelling abilities. Reading it again was a real treat! I found myself immersed in this fantasy world once again--and I will likely read this series at least once more.

[Arianna Carranza · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic fantasy book, Meg is a great character.

[Audrey Helmreich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I think this was the strangest book series I’ve ever read. Only ‘The Magicians’ trilogy by Lev Grossman comes close. But it has an endearing quality that made it fun to read at the same time. My biggest complaint is that I wish there was more of a connection between the books instead of the lack of continuity that it actually had. The main thing relating the books to each other was the Murry family and that each book involved some element of space/time travel.

A Wrinkle in Time- 3 stars, absolute fever dream
A Wind in the Door- 3 stars, fever dream with made-up biology
A Swiftly Tilting Planet- 4 stars, fever dream with interesting made-up historical elements
Many Waters- 2 stars, boring fever dream with biblical historical elements
An Acceptable Time- 3 stars, boring fever dream with moody teenagers and made-up historical elements

[Jenifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the 2nd time I've read this book. I read it as a young girl, and at that time, I loved it so much. It was my favorite book. I decided to read it again, as it seems to be having a 2nd wave of popularity. My takes on it this time. 1. It's definitely a YA book and written for young readers. 2. It was completely different than I remembered it. In fact, I didn't really remember any of it, but I was probably about 11 when I read it the first time. 3. It has religious and spiritual themes that I didn't remember at all either. At first, this put me off since I'm not religious at all and no longer believe in a god the way I did when I was young, but after reading the entire book, I feel that it leans towards a concept of god that is different than the dogmatic views of god most western religions have and god in this sense is really about love and acceptance and inclusion. Maybe I'm reading some of that through my own lens. 4. It has a sweet but very simplistic message about good and evil and love, though of course it's appealing to children who need more simple messages. 5. It's a good book, and I would still recommend it for young people, but it didn't hold up to the reverence I once had for it, but as a YA book, it's still an amazing book. I also read the afterwords by the author's granddaughter, which was informative and enlightening. The author was pretty amazing herself.

[S. Wigget]

I started reading this because I thoight I was the only person in North America who didn't read A Wrinkle in Time as a child...but as soon as I began reading, I recognized it. Well, it's worth reading again.

[Rue · Rating 5 out of 5]

These books have been some of my favorites since I was little. I read "A Wrinkle In Time," in 30 minutes and it is one of the books that kept me engaged in math and science through the years. It is a masterpiece and this series is a must-read for people of all ages.

[Emily Frazier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. My sister said it was the beginning of her love for science-fiction, and after reading it, I’m off to Dune! 🤣 though it’s a children’s book, I found the story telling and world building exciting and I had NO IDEA What was going to happen next. The plot was plotting. I love Calvin 😭

I never read this in school. I see why it’s a must read! I am glad to have been gifted it by friend Bre for Christmas!

[Diana Gugel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flight into fantasy

It was fun reading these books yet again. The word with its call to imagination is more powerful than even the must well crafted and spectacular film. (The Movie is fine but pales next to the book.). I enjoyed the Newbery acceptance speech at the end. These books help me remember the gift of being a child.

[Linda Mastromonaco Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, now I want to read the rest of her books with crossover characters

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, great imagination!!! I enjoyed it very much.

[Morgan Mayo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book, my first time reading it and I loved the scripture tied in through out. I loved the family story. And of course I loved the Mrs W’s

[Ashlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

simple and to the point but uses great imagery and storytelling. I’m surprised I never read this as a kid and to learn that there was a lot of hesitancy around it being published at the time. totally makes sense as a great intro to the sci-fi genre

[Mukta Mohapatra · Rating 3 out of 5]

My goodness, it took me an immense amount of time to get through these five books! I wanted to re-read the first one since the film is coming out and I remembered enjoying it as a child.

[Adam DeBord · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meg Murry feels like the black sheep of her family. She is not good at school, she has thick glasses, and she has braces. The rest of her family tend to fit into the mold of “successful” far better than she does, and she is forced to live in the shadow of her famous physicist father. Her father is missing at the beginning of the story. Meg has no idea where he is.

This all changes one evening when she overhears her mother speaking to Mrs. Whatsit who tells her mother that Meg’s father is alive, and that the tesseract is real. This chance overhearing leads to Meg, her younger brother Charles Wallace, and a childhood friend of theirs, named Calvin, to be swept off by three strange women named “Mrs. Whatsit,” “Mrs. Who,” and “Mrs. Which” on an adventure across time and space.

Most of the action takes place in a place called Camazotz. This is a bizarre planet of hyper-conformity where everyone is watched by a massive surveillance state system called CENTRAL Central Intelligence, this surveillance state is controlled by a large brain simply called IT. To rescue Meg’s father the trio must confront IT. This results in Charles Wallace being taken by IT, though the the other two do save Meg’s father. After fleeing to safety it is learned that only Meg can save her brother, who is under the dark influence of IT.

This book was written in 1962. This was the height of the Cold War and the Space Race. This sentiment is seen throughout the book. Camazotz, a place where everyone is the same and they are forced to eat bland, barely decipherable food, while living under the oppressive thumb of a surveillance state that brainwashes the masses into believing that this is the best way of life is peak Cold War paranoia and how the westerners viewed the Soviet system hidden behind the iron curtain.

The book extols the virtues of the Western system of governance multiple times. The ethereal beings of Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit were explicitly described as being angels and Calvin makes mention of the way God is watching out for them. This is a clear signifier that divides what was perceived as the “godless” communists of the USSR from the Christian capitalists of the USA.

None of this is to suggest that the book is meant to simply be an allegorical parable of the Cold War and the rise of the USSR, the way “Animal Farm” is. This is first and foremost a children’s book. As such it has broader messaging about how you may feel like you don’t measure up, but the things you always viewed made you inferior to your peers can actually provide you with certain benefits they won’t have. Meg is revealed to be an amazing mathematician, who can solve extremely complex math problems in her head with relative ease. This helps her resist the lies IT tries to plant in her head that ultimately ensnare Charles Wallace.

Charles Wallace and Meg’s desperate rush to save him can also have much greater resonance in the modern world as a stand-in for radicalization many experience that the internet exasperates. Charles Wallace is lost to IT which plants lies and logic traps in his head. Charles begins to believe that the world of Camazotz is perfect and serene and nothing anyone tells him can tell him otherwise.

Meg learns that she is the key to saving him. It can’t be Calvin who just recently met Charles, and it can’t be Meg and Charles’s father, who was out of his life since he was a baby. It has to be Meg. She has known Charles his whole life and was there for him for everything he needed from her. It is her love that ultimately frees Charles from IT.

This can be seen with people in our lives and the way they get radicalized. You cannot force them out of their radical beliefs through violence. You cannot impart logic to explain the flaws in their beliefs. Their beliefs come from the emotional need that they fill. The best way to pull someone out of radicalization is to appeal to them with love. Love is often what they are lacking that lead them to those beliefs. It is the best way to pull them back out.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my individual book reviews for the Time Quintet. From a pop culture perspective I’m glad I finally read these books, but I probably won’t ever read them again. They’re very likely much more enjoyable as a kid than as an adult.

[Trippe Howell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big good tears at the end

[Mark Haury · Rating 2 out of 5]

This series starts off great with "A Wrinkle In Time", which was as good as I remembered from when I read it as a kid. For some reason I never read any of the other books until now. Unfortunately, it starts losing its way with the second book and just goes downhill from there. What starts off more or less science fiction in the first book morphs into pure fantasy with the second, and after that becomes alternative religious fantasy history. "A Wind In The Door" is still an enjoyable read, even though it changes genres, and is a reasonable foray into basically the same universe as "A Wrinkle In Time." "A Swiftly Tilting Planet", however is a hot mess. It has little connection with the previous two books other than incidentally having a few of the same characters as bookends but not main characters. It jumps around in a vast timeline too much, with characters with very similar names but different relationships and it is completely impossible to keep track of who is what to whom. It also starts a theme that is continued in the rest of the books but is completely counter to reality (while being presented as just historically unknown to most of humanity) and thus breaks suspension of disbelief too drastically to allow a continuous reading experience. The writing and storytelling is actually very good, but it's specific ideas and circumstances that keep jolting me out of the story and make it a very difficult read. It has taken me many months and determination to keep going back and reading in fits and starts. "Many Waters" comes out of left field and has nothing to do with the rest of the series at all other than the central characters being the Murry twins. It is much more enjoyable and an easier read than "A Swiftly Tilting Planet", but again it twists religious history to the point of impossibility and has a rather unsatisfying and abrupt ending. The final book, "An Acceptable Time", is better than the previous two installments, but takes the impossible premise of the third book (Druids in the Americas) as its basis. The problem is that the premises are just too forced and unnecessary and could have been replaced with much more believable ones without changing the storyline at all. Without the unnecessary distraction the books would have been much, much better.

The bottom line is that I heartily recommend "A Wrinkle In Time", recommend "A Wind In The Door" with a caveat, and don't recommend the final three books at all. Do yourself a favor and stop with the original.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Wrinkle in Time is good, beginner scifi. A bit heavy on the anti-communism theme, perhaps, but a good start. Unfortunately the other books in this "series" are a disappointment.

A Wind in the Door is a worthy sequel, but the science is very shaky. The plot is continued, however. The same can't be said of the remainder of the books.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet starts the decline, as the multiple time periods with similarly named characters are more confusing than necessary. Many Waters takes the Christian themes to an extreme by taking characters to a version of the time of Noah and the flood. An Acceptable Time is even worse, with the emphasis on religion once again, and this time characters act oddly - why does the grandfather doubt that Polly can travel through time when he traveled to different planets and met aliens in the first book?

The religious themes are odd, as they obviously represent the author's personal view. The constant references to Christ will put off non-religious readers and the atypical views will put off any organized religion - and is no doubt why the books have been objected to and banned from many libraries (something I don't agree with, but I can understand why narrow minded individuals would find the book counter to their viewpoints).

I re-read A Wrinkle in Time for my daughter, and it still holds up. I did not know about the sequels and read them for the first time, but was mainly disappointed. It's unfortunate, as I hoped the rest of the books were as good or better than the first, but they weren't.

[Smokey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This "sort-of" science fiction series (the author herself is no fan of the genre) centers on the Murray family, who live in New England in the latter half of the 20th century. Everyone in the family is a unique, gifted individual, but all the stories focus primarily upon the children and their reactions to outlandish events involving time and space.

The books blend elements of religion, myth, legend and history, but mainly focus on how each of the children in the stories are forced to rely on themselves and the gifts they are given to fight badness with goodness, to give even when it's hard, and to grow into themselves and their place in the pattern of things.

This five-book set consists of A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time, and is directed primarily at those who are pre-teen, remember vividly being pre-teen, or can tell you with deadly accuracy when their twelfth birthday will be arriving.