How Madeleine L’Engle Tilted My Planet – Books That Inspire

For a wonderful book review on this and many other books, please visit my friend’s blog The Warden’s Walk.  He also makes some very pertinent objections to some of the theology in the book.

Perhaps my favorite of the original three Time Quintet, A Swiftly Tilting Planet plays with the idea of time travel and the importance of the choices each person makes.

This book skips ahead nine years. Charles Wallace is the main character, although Meg and the rest of the family play a fringe part.  His journey on a time traveling unicorn causes the future to alter, by influencing people of the past to make different decisions in order to change the future.

Naturally, one of the most important things I learned from this book as a young adult is the importance of my decisions and how they may affect the future.  I found it very thought provoking when Charles and Gaudior would find themselves in a “projection”  which is a picture of what could be or a “Might-Have-Been” to see what could have been if different choices were made.  I also learned a lot about history in this book; not facts and dates as much as how history has taken us from where it once was, to where we are now.

Another thought I found interesting, and it has literally shaped my philosophy to the point that I have based much of my writing on it, is the thought that, “It’s not where, but when.”  It is more natural for Guadior (the time traveling unicorn), to travel in time, but it is easier for Charles Wallace to travel in places. If you are reading my series about New Glarus, you can see how this book affected me.  In this series, I write about the same place, but in different times of my life.  I have Madeleine to thank for that.  I wish she were still here.  I think we would have very passionate discussions, in which we agreed, and agreed to disagree.  One of the things I love most about her is I think she would allow me the freedom to do that – to disagree that is…