A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle is a whirlwind journey through space and time in which love must conquer hatred and fear. L'Engle beautifully crafts a tale of the power of friendship and family to carry a child through trying times. The tale empowers the main character to believe in herself and love her gifts, without comparing herself with others. This book is great for those difficult adolescent years where you're not sure who you are or what you're worth.

The actual plot is much more complicated. The book opens with the fears and disappointments of young Meg Murray. While Meg's whole family is smart and talented, Meg feels average and is quite hostile about it. To make matters worse, Meg's father has been gone for quite some time on some top secret government business related to his physics background. Meg's baby brother, Charles Wallace, is wise beyond his years and seems to have the ability to know what Meg is feeling. During a dark and stormy night, a strange old woman appears at the Murrays' door. The woman turns out to be Mrs. Whatsit, a friend of Charles Wallace. The next day, Charles Wallace and Meg set out to visit Mrs. Whatsit and meet a new friend, Calvin O'Keefe.  Calvin becomes a source of comfort and companionship for Meg. By the end of the day, Charles Wallace, Meg and Calvin are travelling through spacetime to rescue their father from the darkness of the universe with the help of Mrs. Whatsit and her companions Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which.

This is only the beginning. Although I found this book somewhat confusing and would worry about its accessibility for young readers, it is a wonderful book. As a lead character, Meg is excellent. Almost any reader can find common ground in her sorrow, her fear or her need for affirmation. Although I found the ending abrupt, it left me feeling empowered by love and affirmation for believing in myself and my own power to do good. (My what a cheesy ending, right?)

The edition that I read (published by Square Fish in 2007) included a short interview with the author and then the author's Newberry Medal speech. In her speech, L'Engle calls authors to action, to plead with them to continue writing fantasy for children because fantasy is part of  a "universal language" that children need to become a part of.

While looking for more information, I was excited to find teaching materials for the book from The Glencoe Literature Library. I accessed it as a pdf (http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/pdf/wrinkle_in_time.pdf) and the document includes guides for mapping the characters and the main events, as well as background information on the author, the concepts, new vocabulary and more. If you are interested in using this book in your classroom, check this information out.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963

I bought and started reading The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis because I am interested in how the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s gets presented to young readers. I noticed the Newbery Honor and the Coretta Scott King Award, thinking it would be a good example of how this topic is addressed. I was not disappointed; this is an excellent book!

The Watson family lives in Flint, Michigan, huddling for warmth during the cold winters. The book is written from Kenny Watson's perspective. Kenny is the middle child. His older brother Byron was "a god" at the elementary school, controlling everyone with his bullying friend, Buphead. Most of the time this worked to Kenny's benefit, but sometimes Byron and Buphead turned on Kenny. Kenny's younger sister, Joetta (Joey for short), cries over almost everything. In the first half of the book, Kenny tells us about several of Byron's acts of delinquency. Mr. and Mrs. Watson decide it's time for Byron to go live with his maternal grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama. After the car, the Brown Bomber, has been spruced up and cleared for the trip, all 5 Watson's pile in the car for the long drive. Momma has prepared a detailed itinerary of stops and planned every cent to be spent, but Dad has different plans. He drives for 18 hours straight to Birmingham. The children realize that while Birmingham is different, it's the backwoods place they thought it would be. In Birmingham, Kenny is confronted with two tragedies in a row and quickly the family rushes back to Flint, where Kenny is trying to deal with the fear and pain inside of him. The book wraps up with Byron being a caring and healing influence for Kenny, a drastic change of pace for him.

Curtis leaves the major Civil Rights commentary for his epilogue. A good summary of the movement and the events allows readers to connect the Watson's experience with the real life events. This book is engaging from start to finish, and would probably encourage a young reader to want to know more about the events of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. I think the book would be good to use in conjunction with historical study of the time period, but based on reading level and subject matter is probably better suited for middle school age students and above.

As I was reading, I wondered what inspired Christopher Paul Curtis to write a book like this, one that covered such an important moment in history and about such a quirky family. Was this his family? Did he experience these events? After reading a few interviews (http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-curtis-christopher-paul.asp and http://www.powells.com/authors/curtis.html), I found out that the most inspirational moment for Curtis was his own family's 24 hour drive to Florida.
"That's how the story got started. It was about a family taking a trip and the year was 1963, but the story was called The Watsons Go to Floridaat the time. Then I went back and worked on it, but once I got the family to Florida, nothing happened. So I set it aside for a while, until my son brought home a poem by Dudley Randall called "Ballad of Birmingham" about the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church. As soon as I heard it, I said, 'Ah! The Watsons want to go to Birmingham!' and I wrote the rest of the story" (From the powells.com interview).


So, teachers, just keep in mind that someday your assignment may inspire a Newbery author!