So Chelsea Clinton gave a very bookish speech tonight. Very inspiring to hear her mention Pride & Prejudice & A Wrinkle in Time among others -- and to hear a shout out to libraries!
Apparently this caused these titles to trend on twitter almost immediately. I do hope it will also encourage people to read them, especially this one. A Wrinkle in Time is an exquisite read, and it is also a perfect one for right now.
The Murry family is made up of many misfits, especially Meg, icon to smart gawky adolescent girls everywhere. They're all clever; her parents are also brilliant scientists. They are always committed to the good; to peace, to inclusivity, to understanding. And they are also under attack, via Meg's father, by an hateful overlord of another planet, Camazotz. His shtick is control of his planet through fear and hate. Meg's final freedom comes when she faces down IT on Camazotz, and defeats him.
As long as I stay angry enough IT can't get me.I believe that this message of love as the only response to hate and fear resonates now, even for those of us who aren't Americans. It's a wider message that bears repeating. And this book shares it in a beautifully accessible way.
Is that what I have the IT doesn't have?
"Nonsense," Charles Wallace said. "You have nothing that it doesn't have."
"You're lying," she replied, and she felt only anger toward this boy who was not Charles Wallace at all. No, it was not anger, it was loathing; it was hatred, sheer and unadulterated, and as she became lost in hatred she also began to be lost in IT.... with the last vestige of consciousness she jerked mind and body. Hate was nothing that IT didn't have. IT knew all about hate...
....suddenly she knew.
She knew!
Love.
That was what she had that IT did not have.
She had Mrs. Whatsit's love, and her father's, and her mother's, and the real Charles Wallace's, and the twins', and Aunt Beast's.
And she had her love for them.
Time to reread it. All together now.
