Following the theme which characterizes her last two books, that of young protagonists who make travel and an interest in science the roads of maturity, Madeleine L'Engle has created a … novel [The Arm of the Starfish] demanding a place on all young adult bookshelves….

[It presents] that type of smooth running plot which immerses one to its end in story alone, and only then delivers in brilliant flashes a shower of meaning and application. Some handlings of situation are overdrawn, being perhaps too intense pockets of the author's perceptive sensitivity. Usually the tone is even and natural, suspense building up through the clash of events upon the perplexed and wary minds of both boy and reader. It is a book about love and loyalty, about the difficulty but necessity of committing oneself to a cause the implications of which extend to "Heaven and the future's sakes." Could anything...