A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Meg and her family have been without their father for a number of years.  He is an astrophysicist who disappeared mysteriously while doing one of his experiments.  Now Meg, although very bright, is struggling with school, and unhappy with herself.  Then one day her brilliant, almost clairvoyant, 5-year-old brother, Charles Wallace, introduces her and a friend, Calvin, to three beings who take them on an adventure through the galaxy to find their missing father.

This is, of course, not a recent book.  In fact, it won the Newbery medal the year before I was born.  I read it this month because I was asked to do an after school program about it because of the release of the new movie.  At first I didn't know what to talk about at the program but as I did research about the timing of its publication, I came to find out some interesting things.  Here is what I learned:

It is really the only Sci-Fi book to ever win the Newbery (unless you call, The Giver, and When You Reach Me sci-fi, which they are, kind of, but not in the same way.)

The September before it won the Newbery, Kennedy gave his "Let's go to the Moon" speech that caught the imagination and galvanized the resolve of the nation about the space program.

The very next month was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was the scariest episode in the cold war, our nation's efforts to "stop the spread of Communism."

 So if you mix the excitement about space travel, and the fear of the spread of Communism together, then you get, "A Wrinkle In Time."

I also found out that is has been one of the most "banned books" of all time.  That is strange to me because it is usually the conservative Christian Right the wants to ban books, and this book quotes the Bible several times.  But I guess that is why they wanted to ban it.  It quotes scripture, but puts it on the level of other famous philosophies. At the same time the three "witches" are acting like God figures. It was seen as setting up "other gods" instead of the Christian God. 

In preparation for my class I watched the 2006 made-for-TV movie of A Wrinkle in Time.  Then on Saturday I went to see the new movie.  If you are looking for a movie that reflects the book, watch the older one.  That said, I liked the new one too.  It didn't follow the plot of the book very closely, but some of the same spirit was there, and many of the scenes were very beautiful.  I liked it (and the other movie, and the book) because Meg is a hero not because she can fight and wield a sword like Wonder Woman, but because she can love her little brother so much that she is willing to overcome her own insecurities and risk everything to save him.  In the end it is precisely that love that has the power to free him from darkness.  (262 p. 1962)