The Kairos Novels–2 Volume Box Set
Madeleine L’Engle
Leonard S. Marcus, Editor
The Library of America
For fans of Madeleine L’Engle’s Kairos novels, featuring Meg Murray and her family, this collection is a must-have. For those who haven’t been introduced to Meg, Charles Wallace, Calvin and the rest, it is an easy introduction into the world and mythos L’Engle created.
The best known of these classics is A Wrinkle in Time. Part science fiction-fantasy, part philosophical-theological treatise, the story revolves around teenager Meg and her youngest brother, Charles Wallace. (He is never “Charlie” or “Chuck.”) The five-year-old prodigy along with Meg and her school friend, Calvin O’Keefe, time travel to a distance world to save Meg and Charles’ physicist father. In spite of Mr. Murray’s brilliance, he isn’t quite advanced enough to understand all the powers the tesseracts unleashed, and he has been missing for several years at the opening of the tale. With young Charles’ prescient powers and with the help of three magical beings–Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which–Meg and the boys mustfight the forces of darkness found in the shadows of the universe in order to bring Mr. Murray home across time and space.
. . . excellent job compiling L’Engle’s masterpieces, adding deleted passages never before published . . .
The second, third and fourth of the original A Wrinkle in Time quartet featuring Meg and Charles Wallace complete the first volume of this two box set. The second volume contains the adventures of Polly O’Keefe, Meg and Calvin’s daughter in the final four of the Kairos novels. The Library of America press has done an excellent job compiling L’Engle’s masterpieces, adding deleted passages never before published as well. No Young Adult section of any public or school library should be without these two volumes.
