A Wrinkle In Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

A Wrinkle in Time is a book from Amazon's list that I know I read at some point as a child, but chose to reread it because I have no recollection of it.  Lo and behold, it is quite a different experience as an adult.  As a child, you are transported into a fantastical world of time travel and faraway planets.  As an adult you find yourself wondering.... what drugs was this author on that she could come up with this!?!

I did some research, and it turns out that the world created by Madeleine L'Engle was a result of her studies in the classics, quantum physics, and a short article about the so called "tesseract" which features heavily in the book.  Apparently a tesseract is a "real" thing, or at least theorized to be real.  L'Engle was so fascinated with the concept of the tesseract and time travel that she wrote her entire series because of it.

Illustration of a tesseract

A Wrinkle in Time follows the story of young Meg, an outcast and underachieving girl from a family of geniuses.  Her mother is a genius scientist, her twin brothers are exceptional in school, her baby brother speaks like he obtained a PhD, and then there's her father- a scientist for the government who has been missing for years without explanation.  Meg has always felt like the most disappointing member of her family, until one day she gets swept off with her brother and a random boy from school to save her father in the far reaches of the universe.

 

With the assistance of three mysterious beings named Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit, the trio encounters distant planets and monsters I couldn't even dream up while in search of Meg's father.  I read this book in about three days, unable to do much else.  It is strange, bizarre, and fafetched but fascinating all the same.  If you didn't read it as a child, you should definitely give it a go as an adult.