The Places You Will Go

A Wrinkle in Time, well worth two Newbery medals | Books | guardian.co.uk

Madeleine L'Engle in 1946

via guardian.co.uk

Posted via web from daphnelee's posterous

Writing yesterday about Rebecca Stead's Newbery medal win for When You Reach Me I was catapulted back to my 11-year-old self and my total adoration for Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. Stead's heroine is engrossed in L'Engle's book, itself a Newbery winner published almost 50 years earlier, and according to reviews A Wrinkle in Time plays a large part in Stead's novel (I haven't read the Stead yet but it sounds fun and is on my ever-expanding list.

Strangely, I'd reread A Wrinkle in Time only a couple of weeks ago, after spotting it in a secondhand bookshop complete with one of its follow-ups, A Wind in the Door, which I'd never read before. Having written previously about children's books that don't live up to an adult reread, I was slightly nervous about tackling such a favourite, but it was just as wonderful 19 years on and I can't believe I'd forgotten about it for so long.

The Hugo Nominations

The Hugo Awards celebrate the best in the field of science fiction and fantasy.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is nominated in the best novel category (good to see that children's novels share this category).

And Shaun Tan is nominated in the best professional artist category.

More here.

The Science of Miracles

THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX

By Mary E. Pearson

Publisher: Henry Holt, 266 pages

ISBN: 978-0805076684

JENNA Fox is 17. When she was 16 she was in an accident that put her in a coma for a year. She is awake now and every thing is different. Strange.

It’s not just that her family no longer live in Boston. It’s not just that Jenna can’t remember a single thing about her past. Or that every link she had with her life before the accident seems to have been severed.

Her parents whisper about her and watch her closely, with something like fear in their eyes. Her grandmother, whom she used to call Nana, but now automatically calls Lily, is physically and emotionally distant. “Why do you hate me?” Jenna asks her and Lily replies, “I don’t hate you, Jenna. I simply don’t have room for you.”

Yet Jenna, although she can’t remember events from a year ago, has distant memories of babyhood, memories of a time when Lily adored and cherished her. What could have happened to cause her feelings to change so drastically?

“How far would you go to save someone you love?” This question is printed across the book’s cover. How far did Jenna’s parents go to save her after the accident? So far that Jenna’s grandmother doesn’t approve?

Lily says that Jenna is “not natural”. But her own daughter, Claire (Jenna’s mother) was an in vitro baby. Claire says to Lily, “You always called me your miracle. Why can’t I have one too? Why do you get to decide when the miracles will end.”

What sort of miracle is Jenna? Mary E. Pearson does a good job of keeping you guessing and wondering. Every thing is seen from Jenna’s perspective so you share her confusion and worry and questions. Equally, you also learn things as she does, and feel her horror and anguish as the truth is slowly revealed.