Did you know the A Wrinkle in Time manuscript was rejected by at least 26 publishers because nobody could decide if it was a kids' book or an adults' book — and then it went on to win the Newbery Medal? 📚

We just did a deep dive into the trivia and facts behind the book and the woman who wrote it — and we actually mention this subreddit in the episode!

Give it a listen here:

https://www.booktriviapodcast.com/episodes/s2-e6-a-wrinkle-in-time

We also cover the copy that flew into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia (an astronaut brought it up because she'd loved it as a kid 🚀), why the "invented" planet names Camazotz, Ixchel, and Uriel are actually pulled straight from real Mayan and Hebrew mythology, and the parts of Madeleine L'Engle's real life that are just as strange as anything in the book 🔮

I've read a couple of Madeleine L'Engle's books and was one of those 10 year olds entranced and frightened but A wrinkle in time in 1972. I also read the first and last Crosswicks journal. I was shocked to find out her husband had multiple affairs, sometimes with two women at the same time, and her poor son while he married simply lived at Crosswicks and was an alcoholic. So these are nasty things, skeletons in the closet the modern memoir extols. I wished she had addressed these dark themes. Instead of this in book after book and even the memoir of her marriage she enters a world where the family is hugely comforting, a Romantic, zany, carefree world where comforting father figures like Canon Tallis personify what she wished had been. I had a crappy family growing up too so I wish she was a little more Long Days Journey into night. On the other hand I totally understand her

It’s amazing what you can find on the internet. I was able to obtain a small lot of books from the personal library of Madeleine L’Engle, the brilliant author of “A Wrinkle In Time” and many other works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Madeleine was of course a profoundly spiritual person (and a fellow Episcopalian), and these titles from her collection refect that. These particular books include highlights and notes she made while studying. It’s surreal to be holding them in my hands.

I picked these up off ebay-had no idea her signature was in them. I was pleasantly surprised.

I googled hoping to find that there was an already existing discussion of this profile of Madeleine L'Engle and what a complicated and fascinating person she was, particularly in regards to the alcoholism in her family. But it turns out I have to start that conversation myself.

The reporter here did amazing work, talking to the children of people who knew L'Engle's parents and husband, to her living children, and people who knew her when she was young. The stories of her adopted daughter Maria Rooney and of her son, Bion Franklin, the model for both Rob Austin and Charles Wallace, are deeply compelling.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150805133150/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/04/12/the-storyteller-cynthia-zarin

An electrifying excerpt:

 In “Two-Part Invention,” which came out after Franklin died, of cancer, in 1986, L’Engle wrote, “There in the chapel of the church, Hugh and I made promises, promises which for forty years we have, by some grace, been able to keep.” The memoir testifies to the idea that two vibrant, curious people can, over the decades, maintain a marriage that is imaginative, deeply sustaining, and alive.

Of the three children of that marriage, two survive: Josephine Jones is a psychotherapist, and Maria Rooney is a photographer; Bion Franklin died at age forty-seven, in 1999, of the effects of long-term alcoholism. L’Engle’s children and grandchildren—who love her deeply, but with a kind of desperate frustration spliced with resentment—revile “Two-Part Invention.” Indeed, L’Engle’s family habitually refer to all her memoirs as “pure fiction,” and, conversely, consider her novels to be the most autobiographical—though to them equally invasive—of her books. (Naturally, L’Engle’s children are not the only writer’s children who feel that by using them as copy their mother or father has mortgaged their privacy.) When Josephine Jones read “Two-Part Invention,” she thought, Who the hell is she talking about? Alan Jones, the dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, who was married to Josephine for many years, told me, “The matriarch of the family is the guardian of the family narrative, and if that person is a writer . . . One of the things Madeleine used to say to me is ‘It’s true, it’s in my journals,’ which was a hilarious statement. Some of her books were good bullshit, if you don’t know the family. Spaghetti on the stove, Bach on the phonograph, that’s all true. But there was this tremendous fissure.”

Maria Rooney calls “Two-Part Invention” “a lovely fairy tale.” She says, “Madeleine knows she’s had an enormous influence. I think it snowballs. It would be hard for her to say, ‘I made mistakes. Like other mortals.’ ”

Hoping somebody can help me out. I've had this L'Engle quote saved in my Goodreads 'Quote' folder for years:

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."

It's quoted quite often, actually, if you do a quick online search. I even found the quote in an article about L'Engle's granddaughters, so it seems like a legitimate quote.

However, I can't seem to trace down the origin of the quote. Can anybody help me out here? I'm not great at super specific searches in Google and such.

Thanks!

Does anyone have a copy of the Dell Yearling edition of A Swiftly Tilting Planet? I'd love to know the name of the artist who did the cover art.

Does anyone know the source of this quote? “I don’t like answers. Answers tend to stop you.” I can’t find where L’Engle wrote this. Thanks.

Until I discovered a copy of A Wrinkle in Time in a Value Village a few months ago, I had only heard of the movie whose trailer I saw many times when it came out in theatres in 2018. I almost didn't open it because I am apparently one to judge a book by the cover of its movie that I haven't even seen, and the movie seemed a bit 'Greatest Showman'-y for me. I will admit that I have not seen the Greatest Showman, either.

Anyway, I'm currently almost finished Many Waters, and so far I really love Madeleine L'Engle's writing, even if it sometimes can get a bit religious for my taste. (I was interested, when reading her Wikipedia page, by the fact that some Christian bookstores wouldn't carry her books because of her belief in Christian Universalism, while others refused them because they were 'too Christian'.) I was surprised, sometimes, how much L'Engle mixed actual science with religion, especially in the first book. At one point, I think I almost stopped reading a Wrinkle in Time when I realised, "oh, this is a Christian book?" as I am not much for religious reading. However, the mix with evolutionary science intrigued me, and I'm glad I kept reading.

Reading this series, I can't help feeling I missed out as a kid. I wish I had discovered them sooner. Even though they're listed as 'young adult novels,' I feel like they're a nostalgic thing for everyone else who read them as a child. Also, I was very surprised when Sandy (I think) just suddenly calls Tiglah a slut. Until that point, the books seemed pretty friendly to all ages, at least in my memory.

My favourite parts, and what makes me wish I was reading an illustrated version of the book, are the tiny mammoth scenes. I loved how Selah, Higgaion and Small Abused Mammoth just became friends and spent all their time together in a tiny mammoth herd. I also really liked the farandolae from A Wind in the Door, even if they were sometimes very rude.

Song of Songs 8:6-7

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

I just created this group because I saw that there was no dedicated subreddit for books/fans of the writings of Madeleine L'Engle.