I have a habit of making an idiot of myself in front of authors I idolized in my formative years. . .

In her later years, of course, she was declining, more quiet and less actively engaged than she had been, but when you did connect you could get a sense of her great creative energy. And she was “creative”; she is best know for the trilogy, but she produced many, many books, most relatively forgotten.

I re-read Wrinkle the year after we graduated, when I was spending a lot of time in an elementary school library, and I was blown away by how metaphysical it was. It made me feel better for not having been able to get through A Wind in the Door when I was 8 or 9. I don’t know what I could have possibly made of Wrinkle at that age; I wonder if I would have been more drawn to science if I had read it a wee bit later in my youth? As it is, I’m impressed that it was able to keep my interest. I read somewhere that when L’Engle was asked by prospective publishers who the book was supposed to appeal to, she insisted, “I write for people.” Period. And she did.