From the beginning of the book, Meg is grumpy, jealous, and prone to getting into fights with her classmates. Yet she obviously adores her family, particularly her mother and younger brother Charles Wallace, and she desperately wants her father to come home. In the book’s climactic scene (spoiler alert if you haven’t read it!), her good, true heart helps her triumph over the evil of IT. I think she’s one of the best characters ever.

The supporting characters are wonderful in this book, too. Who doesn’t love Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which? They have some of the funniest lines in the book, and they’re caught stealing sheets, of all things. Calvin isn’t the typical teenage dreamboat, but he suits Meg just fine and serves as a balance for her personality and characteristics.

This book, of course, launched about a thousand other books that Madeleine L’Engle published. I really loved how she continued writing about beloved characters. I read somewhere, though I can’t find it now, that she sent out press releases about her characters’ educational progress long after she had stopped writing about them. Something about Polly O’Keefe getting a PhD in something?

Anyway, A Wrinkle in Time is a sublime book that I must have read at least a hundred times growing up. Like the best books, its ideas and emotions still resonate today.

Here’s the synopsis from bn.com:

Minutes before the train pulled into the station in Jenkinsville, Arkansas, Patty Bergen knew something exciting was going to happen. But she never could have imagined that her summer would be so memorable. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp in Jenkinsville. To the rest of her town, these prisoners are only Nazis. But to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent home life, one boy in particular becomes an unlikely friend. Anton relates to Patty in ways that her mother and father never can. But when their forbidden relationship is discovered, will Patty risk her family and town for the understanding and love of one boy?

When I think about this book, I remember reading it in the summer, on the swing on our front porch, and in the winter, curled up under a blanket on the couch. I was never sure if I would have been as courageous as Patty, but I completely understood the love she felt for Anton. The power of the story and the emotions I felt reading it make it stand up, even after all these years. And I guess that’s really the mark of a great book—which this definitely is.

“Honeysuckle,” he said, and it took me back.

Here’s the summary of the book from the author’s website:

Fourteen years ago, when Grayling was just a baby, her strangely remote mother left her behind with Grandmother. The circle of women who share Grandmother’s big old house have puzzled over the matter, but for Grayling life is good. As she says, “This is my grandmother’s house, where the honeysuckle rain falls in the summer, where most stories have beginnings, middles, and ends.” The women watch over one another, and everyone watches over Grayling and her friend Colleen.

But this summer will bring changes – a new friendship for Grayling with Aaron, and the reappearance of her mother. She visits her mother in San Francisco and meets the strange young man who calls himself Dancer but might better be called Danger. Impulsively, far from home, she puts herself in jeopardy.

Grayling’s encounters with death, love, romance, and peril help her discover the ending of one part of the story and join the circle of the rain catchers.

When the honeysuckle rain falls, the women, including Grayling and Colleen, catch it and use it to rinse their hair. I have always wanted to do this, ever since I read this book. Maybe I’ll snip a clipping of my neighbor’s bush and plant one in my own yard.

This book is so beautifully told that it stays with you. It’s a slow story, focusing on character and backstory, which I’m not sure would be published today. Parts of it still stay with me, like the honeysuckle rain and the image of a house with hands on the clocks. And one rule of etiquette I’ve always liked came from Grayling’s grandmother; she says that a good guest never drops by and stays for longer than an hour.

And that cover! That might be the part of the book that lingers the most. Despite Grayling being a quiet girl, the cover is so bold and beautiful with its yellows and oranges. I simply love it.