M
Madeleine L'Engle
American writer
A Wrinkle in Time Quintet
Synopsis
Meg Murry is a misfit — stubborn, prickly, and convinced she's a failure — the kind of girl who doesn't fit in at school and can't stop worrying about her scientist father, who vanished a year ago while working on a secret government project. Then, on a dark and stormy night, three otherworldly beings — Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which — arrive to tell Meg, her uncanny little brother Charles Wallace, and her new friend Calvin O'Keefe that her father is alive, trapped on a faraway world.
Traveling by "tesseract" — a wrinkle in the fabric of space and time — the children journey across the universe to the planet Camazotz, where every house, every heartbeat, every mind has been forced into eerie conformity by a cold disembodied intelligence called IT. To free her father and brother, Meg will have to draw on the one thing IT cannot understand or control.
Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal-winning classic blends science fiction, fantasy, and moral fable into a timeless story about individuality, love, and the courage of an ordinary, imperfect girl.
Collected in
Genres
Characters
Charles WallaceProtagonist
Meg MurryProtagonist
A stubborn, self-doubting girl who sets out to rescue her missing father.
ITAntagonist
A cold, disembodied brain-intelligence on the planet Camazotz that enforces total conformity on everyone under its control.
Calvin O'KeefeSupporting
A popular schoolmate who joins the journey and becomes Meg's ally.
Charles Wallace MurrySupporting
Meg's precociously intelligent younger brother.
Margaret A. Edwards Award (1998)Newbery Medal (1963)Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award (1965)Vermont Golden Dome Book Award (1964)
Frequently asked questions
Is this book part of a larger series?
This novel is the first entry in the Time Quintet, a series that follows the Murry and O'Keefe families across five books.
Are there other books by the author that connect to this story?
The author created an expansive, interconnected universe where characters and events from this book overlap with many of her other novels, including those outside the primary quintet.
Has this book been adapted for the screen?
The story has been adapted into two feature-length films, a 2003 television movie and a 2018 theatrical release, as well as various stage and graphic novel versions.