In Madeleine’s Own Words

Posted by Melissa Howard Sep 8, 2007

Madeleine L’Engle is one of my all time favorite writers. She has influenced my thinking from the time I first encountered her book A Wrinkle In Time in my Junior High Library up until today. I know she will continue to inspire me and give me hope. I will share some of Madeleine’s own thoughts about her work throughout this week.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. Groucho Marx

Madeleine L’Engle resented being labeled a children’s writer. She wrote books that she needed to write without regard for the audience. When her classic “A Wrinkle in Time” ran publishers’ gamut, it was rejected as too difficult for children but those same publishers would not publish it as an adult book because the protagonist was a child.

Madeleine said that often her most difficult topics ended up in children’s books because they frightened adults but children were willing to struggle with frightening topics.

What mattered to Madeleine is that we know more than we understand. In her book Walking on Water she recounts this:

“A young woman said to me, during the question-and-answer period after a lecture, “I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was eight or nine. I didn’t understand it, but I knew what it was about.”

As long as we know what it’s about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.”