By RuthAnn Deveney Recently, I read Anne Bogel‘s upcoming release, I’d Rather Be Reading, which is a lovely collection of bookish essays. In the piece entitled, “A Reader’s Coming of Age,” Anne talks about the transition in her early twenties, when she had to go from having books chosen for her to needing to choose her own […]
“This question of the meaning of being, and dying and being, is behind the telling of stories around tribal fires at night; behind the drawing of animals on the walls of caves; the singing of melodies of love in spring, and of the death of green in autumn. It is part of the deepest longing […]
My youngest daughter and I read a picture book by Madeleine L’Engle the other night. We hadn’t shared The Other Dog before, so we sat smooshed in an armchair with it, each of us holding a cover. And we laughed: it’s a good book. The dog, Touché, L’Engle Franklin, is upset over a “new dog” […]
Dear Ones, This year for Earth Day, I went to Antarctica from my living room chair. Madeleine L’Engle brought me there, through the novel Troubling a Star. The book, the final in the Austin Family Chronicles, opens with a teenaged, terrified Vicky clinging to an iceberg in the ocean. Before we read about any rescue operation (or […]
My mind went to Madeleine L’Engle last week when I saw the first picture of a black hole. Science, astronomy, physics, quantum mechanics — all those things caught her imagination. In And It Was Good: Reflections on Beginnings, Madeleine writes about how she and her husband (Hugh Franklin) would gaze at the stars, “seeing out […]
Meg saved the world again last week in East Lansing, Michigan. Michigan State University’s theater department transformed an intimate stage into Camazotz for the occasion, bringing to campus a stage adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time. This was a book-lover’s show: a tribute to the story and its truth, not a high-tech reproduction of detail-by-detail […]
Dear Ones, A new teachers’ guide is out, inspiring deeper conversations around the book Becoming Madeleine: A Biography of the Author of A Wrinkle in Time by her Granddaughters. The unit is perfect for encouraging students to think critically about artists, their work, and childhood influences. The book lends itself to reflecting on Madeleine L’Engle […]
Dear Ones, We’re happy to share that a new A Wrinkle in Time teacher resource has arrived! Get your copy of the free resource here, compliments of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. A Wrinkle in Time, the winner of the 1963 Newbery Medal and many young readers’ first encounter […]
Dear Ones, Audiobook lovers, rejoice! New audio editions of Madeleine’s Austin Family Chronicles series are out in the world, through Penguin Random House Audio. These make a great listen for middle-grade or YA readers (or any of us who wished we were Austins). The five books in the Austin Family series follow Vicky Austin as […]