Whoever did the cover art for Madeleine L’Engle books must have had an awesome (terrifying) time of it, this book included. How best to capture a children’s novel about the fifth dimension, ultimate evil, and an alien planet called Camazotz? Oh, of course: three faceless children riding a floating bald marble centaur with a rainbow emanating from his shoulderblades. Wait, too weird? Best balance it out by adding a nice big flower at the bottom of the illustration.
But what would you have done? This book, revolving around travel both in time and outer space, kind of defies any sort of literal visualization. A lot of teachers at my school were incredibly skeptical of Madeleine L’Engle–displaying the unfortunately common Christian aversion to science, or at the very least, refusing to believe that a book that asks this many questions could have any root in faith–and it’s upsetting to me that anyone would ever be discouraged from reading this book. It’s so good. Twelve years after first reading A Wrinkle in Time, I am still scared by the thunderstorm that begins the book, still freaked out by the bodiless brain called IT which controls all the Stepfordy people on Camazotz, still chilled by the scene where Meg saves her brother. And I still have a big crush on Calvin O’Keefe.
the most sacrilegious interpretation of l’engle to date is the disney channel’s presentation of a ring of endless light, starring mischa barton, but i do agree that the original cover art for AWIT is underwhelming. also, save a tesseract, ride calvin o’keefe.
and, by the by, did you read many waters?
DUDE MANY WATERS. I feel like that book made me scared of sex/babies for a long time, actually–the descriptions of the nephilim or whatever, and how they were like giants but they impregnated regular women anyway? Crazy crazy crazy.
If you liked A Wrinkle in Time, check out Shelf Discovery–there’s a whole chapter devoted to it. Lizzie Skurnick, the author, is being interviewed tomorrow by Nancy Pearl.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/LibraryLoveFest/2009/09/23/Nancy-Pearl-and-Lizzie-Skurnick-talk-to-LibraryLovefest
thank you, very interesting idea