My first memories of Madeleine L’Engle’s genre-crossing YA adventure novel A Wrinkle in Time are, for the most part, ones of amused confusion. It’s an engrossing fantasy about a teenage girl, Meg, who—despite her anxieties and faults, and with the help of some friends and three extra-dimensional beings named Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which—embarks on a cross-dimensional adventure to save her missing father from a terrifying monster of darkness and conformity named IT. (Not to be confused with Stephen King’s It—though they ARE both aliens.) Wrinkle was probably the first coming-of-age novel aimed at getting teenage girls interested in astrophysics, and I read it multiple times growing up. Half the time, I never really knew what Meg was talking about, but I liked the creatures, the adventures, and the promise that popular boys could like smart girls. I didn’t understand Einstein’s theory of relativity, but I played along.
Disney’s new blockbuster isn’t the A Wrinkle in Time I read as a child.
