As a bookish child (and adult) my school library was my shelter, refuge, harbor. In the elementary building, we had a seperate library that contained all of Andrew Lang fairy color fairy tale books, the Black horse series by Farley, countless books on animals, stories on witches and warlocks, worlds that lived in our imagination.
When I moved up to Middle School and High School, we were introduced to the larger library, a two story level repository, where I soon found more wonderful stories like Desiree, Beauty (by R. McKinley), the gothic side of Louisa May Alcott, and the books by Madeleine L'Engle. A Wrinkle in Time and the Austin series were all at one time or another borrowed, read, reborrowed, and enjoyed with happy memories. She tied in fantasy with science fiction, however they didn't seem too difficult to read or too fantastical. They were about families who loved and fought, daughter saving her dad, moms caring for the kids. Normal everyday things we do, but with added dimensions and extra-sensory powers thrown in. Ms. L'Engle was a believer in science and introduced theory of relativity to her work, but never made it overbearing in the stories. I recently found out that her books are considered contentious and controversial among many conservative societies, and A Wrinkle in Time was or may still be on the banned books list.
Ms. L'Engle died at the age of 88 last Thursday.
Pike Market Peonies
2 comments:
I loved her ... although only really became familiar with her Wrinkle in Time series. Many Waters was one of my childhood favorites.
hi mila - another madeleine l'engle reader? cool. loved her books. =)
Post a Comment