I have often wished it were not necessary to review a book immediately upon publication. Children's reactions and acceptances are always important and there should be time to be aware of them. The critic's own perspective on a book is often clearer months after it is read. I felt that way about Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. I reviewed it favorably upon publication. Months later the book's extraordinary power began to show itself in the way incidents kept coming to mind, in the hold it had taken on my imagination.

I cannot forget the personalities of the children: precocious little Charles Wallace; Meg, whose faults alone—anger, impatience, stubbornness—could save her; the three strange beings who emerge at times as eccentric but very kind old ladies. (p. 25)

Miss L'Engle has referred to her book as a parable; but it is first of all an exciting adventure...