Death Comes In Threes.

September 9, 2007

Death Comes In Threes.

Can’t believe it. First it was Grace Paley. Then Luciano Pavarotti. And now, it’s Madeleine L’Engle. The Newbery-award (and controversial) writer has died. She was 88. One of her most fabulous books, “A Wrinkle in Time” was rejected by 26 publishers before it was finally accepted by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It proved to be her masterpiece, winning the John Newbery Medal as the best children’s book of 1963 and selling, so far, eight million copies. It is now in its 69th printing. NY Times notes that “Wrinkle” has been one of the most banned books in the United States. The book uses concepts plucked from Einstein’s theory of relativity and Planck’s quantum theory, “almost flaunting L’Engle’s frequent assertion that children’s literature is literature too difficult for adults to understand.” I ordered the book from The Weekly Reader book club, and read it for the first time when I was in the third grade. It was removed from the school library shelves the next year. I still have my original, life-changing, copy. It’s a wonderful can-opener for the back shelves of your mind, no matter how old you are.

Tags: a wrinkle in time, author, book, death comes in threes, madeleine l'engle, sad