Wrinkle

My father, also named Samuel Long, was a very conservative evangelical Christian. He loved me very much. We didn’t have a television or get the newspaper, but I was given great access to thoughtful literature. One of the books my father gave me in the early sixties when I was very young was called ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ by Madeleine L'Engle. It is the subject of an upcoming 2018 American film staring Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon.

Madeleine L'Engle's fantasy works express her Christian viewpoint in a manner similar to C. S. Lewis. It is reminiscent of the prologue to the Gospel of John, which is quoted within the book. The book is often challenged by evangelicals because of references to witches and crystal balls. Some said that it "challenges religious beliefs".

Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which turn out to be supernatural beings who transport Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O'Keefe through the universe by means of tesseract, a fifth-dimensional phenomenon explained as being similar to folding the fabric of space and time. When the "Mrs W’s" reveal their secret roles in the cosmic fight against "the darkness" they ask the children to name some figures on Earth (a partially dark planet) who fight the darkness. It lists Jesus and later Buddha, along with various creative artists and philanthropists. The three women are described as ancient star-beings who act as guardian angels.

Scholar Jean Fulton writes, "L'Engle's fiction for young readers is considered important partly because she was among the first to focus directly on the deep, delicate issues that young people must face, such as death, social conformity, and truth. L'Engle's work always is uplifting because she is able to look at the surface values of life from a perspective of wholeness, both joy and pain, transcending each to uncover the absolute nature of human experience that they share."

The book begins…

“IT was a dark and stormy night. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.

The house shook. Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook. She wasn't usually afraid of weather. —It's not just the weather, she thought. —It's the weather on top of everything else. On top of me. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong. School. School was all wrong. She'd been dropped down to the lowest section in her grade.

That morning one of her teachers had said crossly, "Really, Meg, I don't understand how a child with parents as brilliant as yours are supposed to be can be such a poor student. If you don't manage to do a little better you'll have to stay back next year." During lunch she'd rough-housed a little to try to make herself feel better, and one of the girls said scornfully, "After all, Meg, we aren't grammar-school kids any more. Why do you always act like such a baby?"

And on the way home from school, walking up the road with her arms full of books, one of the boys had said something about her "dumb baby brother." At this she'd thrown down the books on the side of the road and tackled him with every ounce of strength she had, and arrived home with her blouse torn and a big bruise under one eye. Sandy and Dennys, her ten-year-old twin brothers, who got home from school an hour earlier than she did, were disgusted. "Let us do the fighting when it's necessary," they told her…”


“You have to write the book that wants to be written,” Ms. L’Engle once said. “And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”


    In the book, Meg’s father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin try to outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father.

I wondered after my father died when I was thirteen, ‘did he have a premonition of the effect his demise would have on me? Was he acting out of compassion and foresight by giving me that book... or perhaps it was ‘a wrinkle in time’?


 "Adolescence is a time of great questioning when young people try to sort out their own place and purpose in the world. During this period of their lives they often question the values and traditional beliefs of their parents and extended families. This independent investigation of spiritual truth is a recurring theme in adolescent fiction. Young adult fiction can serve as a wonderful vehicle for stimulating growth in an adolescent's awareness of the broad diversity of religious traditions and practices. It can also serve as a vehicle for stimulating growth in an awareness of the unity that exists in the underlying spiritual truths common to the great world religions. Many of the well-known works of adolescent fiction, such as Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret , Robert Peck's A Day No Pigs Would Die , Katherine Paterson's Jacob Have I Loved , Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War , and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time , treat religious themes directly.

When young readers pick up one of these books, they are exposed to the spiritual, moral, and religious topics that the author has chosen to weave through its pages. Consequently, the writer and reader of adolescent fiction may interact as spiritual teacher and student. The books mentioned above explore diverse religious themes and focus on the process of spiritual questioning... A Wrinkle in Time 's protagonists have to overcome great physical and spiritual obstacles on their quest to save Meg'sand Charles Wallace's father from the forces of darkness. A Wrinkle in Time affirms the power of love, courage, and self-sacrifice to conquer evil. L'Engle explains that a source of humanity's anguish is the separation of the intellect from the spiritual heart. For this reason she makes the villain of the story a naked disembodied brain because "the brain that is not informed by the heart is evil" (p. 36).

It is evident from the sampling of fiction for adolescents treated here that there is a wealth of material for the development of a thematic unit on comparative religion for those young people who have embarked on their personal search for spiritual meaning and purpose. The unit could be modeled after the one on Dealing with the Fear of Death, which is presented in its entirety in Reed's book ( pp. 216-221 ). Other books mentioned by Reed that could be included in such a unit are Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (Buddhism), The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (Christian theology), and the Autobiography of Malcolm X (Islam in America). One that is not mentioned is My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi (Hinduism). 

 Madeleine L'Engle said, "Sometimes we are given the miraculousness of life by unexpected teachers" ( L'Engle and Brooke, p. 64 ). Each of these authors is one of these teachers. It cheers the spirit to read their words that refuse to give in to despair and hopelessness. These young readers live in a world where they may have "to hurt a great deal in order to grow and deepen, but there is below all that happens a Yes to the fact of creation ... that all shall be well" ~ Dara Gay Shaw, The Treatment of Religion and the Independent Investigation of Spiritual Truth in Fiction for Adolescents