Mr. Murry, Meg and Charles Wallace’s father and a government physicist, has been missing for years. The whole family misses him tremendously, but that doesn’t prepare them for three strangers showing up one night and whisking Meg, Charles Wallace, and their new friend Calvin off on a multi-planet adventure to try to save him.

I first read this book when I was 10, and there were certain scenes that I always remembered, but it wasn’t a book I read over and over, so there were many things I’d forgotten. Science fiction has never been my preferred genre and as an adult, there were parts of this book that bugged me. I’ll get those out of the way first.

The character development was really choppy. I didn’t notice as a kid, but now I really notice how Meg seems to change her feelings every couple paragraphs, especially in the latter third of the book. The pacing was uneven and choppy as well. Some of the science seemed extremely farfetched, and half the time it was written off as “indescribable.” Then there’s the fact that in all these types of books, the good guys know how to defeat the bad guys, but will only give hints to the person who actually has to do the fighting. That drives me nuts.

On the good side, it was nice to revisit scenes that I still remember clearly. It’s funny, because despite the fact that I didn’t notice the choppy character development as a kid, the characters didn’t stick with me and they didn’t seem very important to the book. Instead, I remembered scenes, concepts, and the places where L’Engle creates pictures of other worlds. I don’t want to talk about it too much, for spoiler’s sake. There are four spots in the book that stood out particularly to me, two involving Camozotz, one involving a bundle of flowers, and one involving blindness. This last one made me think hard for years.

Note: My original review in 2010 spoke about the religious aspects of this book as well, in particular how I didn’t notice them as a child, but bristled at the blatant Christian aspects of the book as an adult. I removed that part of my review due to an excess of flaming comments.

Note: Review date is only an approximate of when this book was read/reviewed in 2010.

Note: Originally read in 1989.