A Wrinkle in Time, About Thirty Years Later Than I Should Have Read It

Never read this as a kid, somehow slipped past me entirely, and only picked it up because two different smart people mentioned it as a childhood favorite within the same month, which felt like a sign I should stop putting it off. Glad I did. Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin tessering across dimensions to rescue their missing father has more of a science fiction feel to it than the Narnia comparison I was half expecting, less allegory, more actual physics-adjacent weirdness dressed up as an adventure for kids.

Meg being awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin the whole book and still being the one who has to save everyone is the part that’s stuck with me longest, there’s a real honesty to a protagonist who doesn’t get smoothed out into effortlessly likable just because she’s the hero. Charles Wallace is the character everyone online seems to love most and I get it, precocious little kid who’s clearly smarter than every adult in the room but never played as a gimmick.

One line I underlined and haven’t stopped thinking about, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean the explanation doesn’t exist, which is doing a lot of quiet work for a book aimed at ten year olds. Language does show its age here and there, a few turns of phrase that land a little dated reading it decades after it was written, but nothing that actually got in the way of the story for me.

Apparently there’s a well regarded graphic novel adaptation by Hope Larson too, which I’m curious about now that I’ve got the original fresh in my head. Already added the rest of the series to the stack.