A Wrinkle in Time

How crazy you mention this book! I was just thinking of the series that other day! A Swiftly Tilting Planet and A Wind in the Door were wonderful as well. :pink_heart:

10 Likes

I’m waving at both of you as another lover of A Wrinkle in Time - a childhood favorite of mine! I still have a copy around here somewhere. Happy Medium was a joyful character. :heart:

10 Likes

I know I read it; I just don’t remember it right now. Time to pull it out again! :purple_heart:

10 Likes

I love those books! I haven’t read them in years but I have them on my Kindle in case I want to. I didn’t like the fourth book, Many Waters that much and I’ve never read An Acceptable Time, the last in the Time Quintet. I liked Meg and Charles and Calvin and was focused on those characters and when L’Engle moved from them, I lost my interest. I might go back now, though. Who knows?

I spent a whole month trying to trying to kythe with a tree after reading this book. I don’t think I got anywhere but who knows really? I mean, I wasn’t into tree spirits or the Fae at the time, I might have got through to something and not noticed.

11 Likes

(Just a friendly note that these posts were rehomed into a space of their own - feel free to continue to discuss A Wrinkle in Time here! :blush:)

9 Likes

Thank you, @BryWisteria! You’re awesome!

9 Likes

I literally just saw this book in a thrift store a few days ago and wanted to pick it up – it’s one of my favorites! :heart_eyes: Now I need to go find it somewhere… lol I may just pick up the ebook, but I would love to have a paperback copy again!

8 Likes

You should have snagged it! But then again, getting a brand new copy from somewhere is so nice. That’s one thing I miss about Kindle, no smell of new books. It’s like it smells of imagination and potential. I’m sad to say I’ve found some essential oils that’s supposed to smell of books, but they never do. Neither did the incense I tried. Nothing smells the same.

8 Likes

I don’t remember how they told us to do it in the book, but here’s my process, if anyone’s interested.

It started in Brownies. Our troop would hug a huge tree just to see how old it was. It was a matter of respect.

Eventially, I would reach up while hugging to see what it felt like to be tall, to see the landscape the way the topmost branches might.

Not long after that, I noticed the trees started hugging back. I could actually feel the branches moving around to reach down toward me. Sometimes, a tree would reach down to brush my hair as I passed beneath it. The next time I walked under that tree, the brushing branch was 8 feet off the ground!

Pretty soon, I was noticing personalities between tree types. Ash trees gave the best hugs. Sugar Maples were motherly. Long needled Pines were a bit chilly, but brushed away concerns so I could act a bit warmer.

Then I learned to reach downward into the roots. Sometimes, I imagined having roots growing out my feet, mingling with the tree roots while I hugged the tree.

Please note: all this time, I didn’t say a word, didn’t ask questions, nothing. A hug was just a hug.

By the time I understood tree language, it came so naturally that I wasn’t surprised at it at all. It was an inner knowing which resembled the sensation of being hugged, but it had more to it. Not sure how to describe it.

My last conversation, the tree took me through the underground system, showing me as well as telling me what it wanted me to know. Rock was an odd sensation which just made sense, blocking and cold. Water tickled and flowed. The ground itself seemed to move and breathe, as though swimming in a pool, yet holding a form of awareness which encouraged root expansion. I remembered scenes of stop motion growth (Secret Garden with Maggie Smith, in case you’ve never seen such films). It wasn’t dark, as I would have expected it to be, traveling underground. I felt wiggly, like a worm, yet expansive as though I were looking out over the Grand Canyon on the wings of a bird.

The second I thought of the Grand Canyon, I was there. It was a sad place. History ripped. How do I explain the sensation? All of time existed at once. I could feel ancient trees being torn from their neighbors. It hurt, yet it seemed long ago and far away.

At an instant recoil, I was drawn back to where I’d been before, but with a brief sensation that I shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t a broken law or guilt response, like we’d have, but a basic knowing from others who had done the same thing. Learn from the experience of others. The sensation was gone as quickly as it had arrived. Sadness was avoided, that’s all. That kind of pain wasn’t healthy. The ripping couldn’t be healed or crossed, so there was no need to go there.

10 Likes

I definitely should have! And to be honest, I can’t remember if I knew that there were more books to the series or if I only ever read the one book… :thinking: now I’m gonna have to hunt for all of the, though I did pick up the ebook from Bookshop.org a few minutes ago :laughing:

9 Likes

Oops, yes we’re guilty of the dreaded thread hijack - so sorry, @BryWisteria! Thank you for the “cleanup on Aisle 4!” :laughing:

(It’s a great book - highly recommend!)

Love and thanks! :heart:

9 Likes

@Amethyst: I’m completely with you about the smell of books! It’s irreplaceable.

When my husband and I moved across country, I purged a lot of books from the shelves - fear of packing/unpacking is a great motivator! (Shout out to our local library for gladly taking them.)

But I still haven’t transitioned to e-books. I only ended up making room for more books once we got settled in. :books:

9 Likes

I don’t believe I read either of them or perhaps maybe I didn’t even know there were more :thinking: I vaguely remember the fourth or at least starting but not finishing the fourth.

How crazy! You should have picked up up! Although if you had asked me two days ago if I wanted to read it I would have said no. Now I have a copy winging it’s way to me :laughing:

I think aside from the heft and weight, the smell of the books - be it the ink or the paper is the physical thing I love about print books!

Oh no, this one’s all on me! :laughing: I just couldn’t believe the coincidence and had to say something in the thread instead of linking to a new one! :laughing: To be fair, I couldn’t have known anyone else would reminisce with me about it! :smiling_face:

8 Likes

Wow, that’s awesome! I probably didn’t do it right. My Brownie Troop was awful. LOL! Didn’t learn a thing. Now I want to go out and start hugging a tree.

At least you can read it while you’re hunting!

I have a small apartment and almost a thousand books on my kindle. I’d never find the room!

The fourth had to do with the twins, Dennis and Sandy, and they went back to the time of Noah and there’s was fighting among the angels and some of then had human lovers? I don’t remember it well, but I didn’t like it nearly as much. The Twins were the normal ones of the family and therefor not nearly as interesting to me.

7 Likes

@Amethyst and @Feathertip - My pleasure! (and no worries about any hijacking - it’s a natural part of conversations!) :heart:

I haven’t read A Wrinkle in Time, but one of my uncles loves it. From what everyone is saying, it sounds like a great read! I might have to slide it onto my mountain-sized to-read list :grin: :+1: :books:

6 Likes

The first three book of the Time Quintet are wonderful! I love A Wind in the Door the best I think. It had The Enemy Unnaming things, and the only way you could help someone is to Name them. Stars would go out without a Name.

I think it was important to know that we have an identity, a Name if you will. I am a Reader and a Friend and a Witch. I have a name. It was kind of deep when you got into it, especially for a kid’s book.

So yeah, a must read.

6 Likes

I absolutely love this for a children’s book. One thing I refused to give up when I became a mother was my name. I didn’t want to become “child’s mom” or “that girl’s mom”, etc., and I refuse to let other mothers lose their names, too. I insist on knowing the names of my kid’s friend’s parents. And I insist on her friends knowing my name, not just calling me “child’s mom”.

If they feel like it’s rude to call me by my name, they can call me Ms. Megan – one of my daughter’s friends insisted on it because it was either that or Ma’am, and I don’t like that one :laughing: – anyway, all that to say that I think it’s important for children to realize that they are absolutely more than a label they have or a role they’ve taken on – names and identity are important.

7 Likes

Absolutely! It’s a firm desire to hold onto what I call your primary identity. Not so-and-so’s mom, or wife, etc. Those may be part of one’s identity but they are secondary names/labels.

At the end of the day, you’re just - you, in all your light and glorious beauty.

@MeganB - you’re very wise to have insisted on this! :heart:

7 Likes

Thank you :heart: We already lose so much of our identities when we become parents (or take on any other major role shift in life) that keeping my name was important to me.

Now I’m really excited to dig into the entire series of books so I can read that for myself! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

7 Likes

Have fun!! :heart:

7 Likes