From the Bookshelf of Never too Late to Read Classics…

A Wrinkle in Time (A Wrinkle in Time Quintet, #1)

Madeleine L'Engle

Start date: July 15, 2016

Finish date: August 14, 2016

Discussion: Children's Classics Buddy Reads

Discussion leader: Gem

Why we're reading this: YA Group Read Selected by Gem
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Children's Classics Buddy Reads

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Jul 05, 2022 Manybooks rated it liked it

Shelves: fairy-tales-fantasy, childrens-literature, m-l-engle, families, book-reviews, science-fiction

Now I know and appreciate that Madeleine L'Engle won the Newbery Award for A Wrinkle in Time in 1963 and that for many of my Goodreads Friends A Wrinkle in Time equally seems to be a personal favourite. But well and for me, having read A Wrinkle in Time for the first time after previously encountering A Wind in the Door (the first sequel of L’Engle’s Time Quintet series), sorry, but I in particular do find Meg and Charles Wallace Murray, as well as their mutual friend Calvin O’Keefe much more po Now I know and appreciate that Madeleine L'Engle won the Newbery Award for A Wrinkle in Time in 1963 and that for many of my Goodreads Friends A Wrinkle in Time equally seems to be a personal favourite. But well and for me, having read A Wrinkle in Time for the first time after previously encountering A Wind in the Door (the first sequel of L’Engle’s Time Quintet series), sorry, but I in particular do find Meg and Charles Wallace Murray, as well as their mutual friend Calvin O’Keefe much more positively rendered by Madeleine L’Engle and as such also much more personable, much more approachable for and to me emotionally in A Wind in the Door, and that this has certainly and in my humble opinion also not really all that surprisingly somewhat limited my personal reading pleasure with regard to A Wrinkle in Time.

For indeed while I generally from page one onwards of A Wind in the Door did totally enjoy my reading time with Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin, the same has unfortunately not all that much been the case with those same three characters as they are made to appear by Madeleine L'Engle in A Wrinkle in Time, with for example Meg Murray being shown as annoying, whiny, and believing that her issues are somehow much more weighty and severe than EVERYONE ELSE’S. Yes, Meg’s father is missing, but she has a loving and supportive family, and honestly, how much she, how much Meg constantly focusses everything on herself and only on herself (at least for much of A Wrinkle in Time) it sure does not make her into a so called kindred spirit for me. And Charles Wallace Murry, with his ridiculous for a four year old’s smugness and inherent arrogance (and even though Charles Wallace has definitely matured by the end of A Wrinkle in Time and has also in my humble opinion understood his own faults and that self assurance can easily lead people astray) just kind of leaves me rather annoyed.

So no, I just do not really like Meg Murry, Charles Wallace Murry and also Calvin O’Keefe with his feeling ashamed of his mother because she s not some kind of fashion plate enough as characters in and of themselves for me to consider Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkls in Time with more than three stars. As even though there is a lot of change and maturation encountered in A Wrinkle in Time, for me personally, in particular Charles Wallace Murry’s self satisfied arrogant demeanour and that this gets both him and his companions into a very dangerous and perilous scenario, it sure does drive in particular my inner child more than a bit batty. ...more

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May 01, 2018 Zuly rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up

Couldn't make it past the halfway mark. I tried this when I was about ten and couldn't get into the fantasy then either. It's the genre, not the book! ...more

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