I really enjoyed this book. Coming in at under 150 pages, it’s a quick read, which is good because I just wanted to keep going, especially once the characters were on their journey to Camazotz. I recalled reading this novel twice before, once in elementary school when I didn’t really “get” it, and I don’t recall how I viewed it upon my second reading, but this time I got it (although I’m still not sure just how much tesseracts make sense to me as used in this novel) and appreciated it.
Many of you probably know the plot by now, either from reading it yourself recently or as a child or from watching the movie, but for those who don’t know, the novel is about Meg Murry, an awkward young teenager. Her father, a brilliant scientist, has been missing for years. One day, 3 immortal beings – Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which – whisk off Meg, her precocious younger brother Charles Wallace, and a neighbor boy named Calvin to search for Mr. Murry. They learn about the Dark Thing, a source of evil that has shadowed or taken over parts of the universe, and how people and other beings in the universe are fighting against it. There are themes of love, faith (in both a spiritual sense and in terms of trusting in others), communication, not taking things at face value, conformity vs. valuing one’s differences, and of course good vs evil.
There are a few spoilers in this paragraph about the end of the novel. I loved the characters and really want to learn more about Charles Wallace and who he is, since his parents think that he is “new.” What keeps me from giving this 5 stars is that the resolution doesn’t provide as many answers as I’d like. I’m not looking for everything to be wrapped up in a tidy bow, and I don’t expect that the Dark Thing would have been destroyed by any means, but I would have really liked to know if IT had at least been significantly compromised. The Mrs Ws had talked about there being more at stake than just Mr. Murry, but at the end the focus is just on the family reuniting, and it doesn’t look like the sequels address the Dark Thing or IT again.