L'Engle

               I'm disappointed with Madeline L'Engle. Disappointed, because I didn't really know she existed, and now that I do know, I feel like she's already written the books I would have liked to write myself. I did read "A Wrinkle in Time" as a kid, but all I got out of it was that IT was really, really freaky. Reading through the series now as an adult (Hey! Are you laughing at my taste in summer reading, or at the word adult?), I find that she's writing a sort of natural law story for our time—less overt than Lewis' Christianity, but also more subtly effective as she bases her appeal on the music of the heavenly spheres, on the unity and harmony of creation, in opposition to the hatred of the fallen. There's some really beautiful prose, too. Check out "A Swiftly Tilting Planet." Definite undertones of Dante. Great stuff.