The Wrinkle in Time Quintet - Digest Size 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, non-fiction, 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Janay Faulkner · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept hearing great things about this book so when I found it for 50 cents at a book sale I thought I'd give it a shot. It took me far too long to finish this book. The reason why? Honestly, I found it quite boring. I will say that I did love the beginning. The way the characters are introduced, the sense of intrigue and the feeling that 'something's about to go down' was awesome. It made me itch to find out what was coming next, and I loved the quirks and sweetness of the main characters.
Once the adventure got underway, however, the story just seemed to become a quite bland series of events. I found the villain quite one-dimensional and predictable, the ending was also very cliché and I could see it coming a mile away. The only part of the ending I enjoyed was probably the tentacled creatures on the grey planet. I would have loved to learn more about them.
Perhaps my expectations were raised too high from other people's praise of this novel, but in any case I won't be re-reading it any time soon.

[Flan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series is a huge disappointment. I was hoping L'Engle had written additional books extending her original trilogy. Instead it was a marketing decision to add two poor sellers to her trilogy to increase sales. The last two books have nothing to do with the first three and although time is an element there were not written as part of the trilogy and don't hold up to the excellence of the first three books. Stick with the original three they are delightful. The last two just don't deserve to be in the box. My rating is for the original three, and should not be considered a rating on the final two books. I would give them 1 star each mainly because I love Madeleine's writing and this decision probably came from the publishers.

[Chris Sawdey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wrinkle in time was a good book because it had a lot of action and suspence. It had a good plot and was hard to stop reading.

A Wrinkle in time is about a girl named meg and a little boy named charles and there father who works for NASA was sent to a planet named Camozotz and he is trapped in a transparent colum. One day Meg and Charles go for a walk then they meet a boy named calvin. Then the meet the three W's. Then they tessered to a hole bunch of planets. Then they finaly go to camozotz. The three W's said they are going to have to let them go by them selves Then the go to find there father. They go to where there father is and Meg uses the glasses and they save father.

[Rob Raish · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a series it is entertaining and perfectly harmless for children. For an adult it is a bit preachy with a major shift in tone from book three to book 4. Interesting characters populate the first three books, but after that they become much less interesting. Throughout the series L'Engle creates interesting worlds filled with wonder. Recommend for kids not so much for adults, but Wrinkle in Time is definitely worth a read.

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was a little confusing at first, but forces you to use your imagination. Some parts just were not credible enough to be believable for an adult. I liked that the main character, who seems to be lacking so much in many areas, becomes the hero. I understand why the book is such a great kids story and I will probably use it in my classes.

[Shelby Letner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first three books are amazing. The fourth is, too, once you get over the character shift. The fifth is much better if you've read all of the Austin family books as well so you will know Polly and Zachary. Otherwise you won't care about the story.