A Wrinkle in Time by Madeliene L'Engle is one of those coming of age books that I find referred to again and again in contemporary literature. It seems that many of today's novelists (at least the ones I read) love this novel and read it again and again throughout their childhoods.
I've heard many moms refer to it too, and they simply can't wait for their daughters to read it and love it too. Unfortunately, I fell into the common trap of giving it to my daughter to read when she was too young to really appreciate it. She thought it was OK, but she wasn't really crazy about it.
Recently, I had the privilege of reading the 2010 Newberry Award winning novel When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Stead brilliantly manages to intricately weave the story from A Wrinkle in Time into her novel without ruining either book. Needless to say, I loved it!
My daughter is now 12, and was looking for a good book to read. I encouraged her to reread A Wrinkle in Time before reading When You Reach Me, and for once she took my advice. This time, she LOVED the L'Engle book and consequently also loved Stead's. I am currently reading A Wrinkle in Time aloud to my 8 and 10 year olds, and hopefully they too will choose to reread it when they are slightly older, before they read When You Reach Me.
Time travel, boy/girl friendships, relationships with parents and siblings and other themes run through both books in ways that we can all relate to. Why not reread one and introduce yourself to the other today?
1 comment:
I have not read When You Reach Me- but it sounds great. Especially since I loved A Wrinkle in Time. One of my favorite books in 5th grade. I even did a puppet show about it! It isn't an easy book- so it could be tough to read it too early.
~Jess
http://thesecretdmsfilesoffairdaymorrow.blogspot.com/
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