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Summary: A journy in time and space, a quest to save the world.
Review: To be Xed means to be nothing. To be named means that you are. For you to be Xed, which you should not desire, you are unsure if who you really are, making yourself vulnerable enough to be shattered by the Echtroi, the evil forces that destroy. In A Wind in the Door, Meg Murry has gone through both. She is a namer and has named Mr. Jenkins, her shy yet strict principal of the high school she attends. She was almost Xed by the Echtroi-Jenkins, and was named by the cherubim companion, Proginoskes. Meg Murry was accompanied by more then the cherubim and Mr. Jenkins. Her youngest brother Charles Wallace, a young boy with the explicable gift of being able to read his mother's and sister's mind, develops a lethal disease. He and his mother, a noted biochemist, believe that it is his mitochondria, which is 'the production center for the molecules (farandolae) that supply energy for the cell.' As Meg and Charles Wallace walk through the twins, their other two brothers Sandy and Dennys, vegetable garden Charles Wallace tells Meg that he has seen a drive of dragons. At first Meg does not believe him, but when she comes upon the teacher Blajeny she realizes that Charles Wallace, in a sense, was not wrong. His alleged drive of dragons was actually the cherubim Proginoskes, a single creature who looks like a group of many cherubs. And of course, Calvin O'Keefe, Meg's 'good' (hm . . . more then good) friend from their and Charles Wallace's previous quests, naturally joins the expedition. Blajeny the teacher pair Proginoskes and Meg, and together they must complete three tasks to save Charles. As Charles fights to survive, Meg, Calvin and Proginoskes are shrunk down to size so much that they journey inside one of Charles' mitochondria. It is then that Calvin meets his partner Sporos, a fickle farandolae that refuses to work with Calvin and Deepen. For Sporos, deepening means the end of his fun, but in reality (the reality of the book) for him to deepen means that Deepened Sporos will reproduce more farandolae so the cell (which is where the mitochondria is located) will be able to produce more energy. Soon they, Meg, Proginoskes, Calvin, and Mr. Jenkins, the principal that Meg had earlier named, realize that an Echtroi has come into the mitochondria with them. The Echtroi had taken on Mr. Jenknins body - like they had in previous perils of the book - and are attempting to prevent Sporos and the other farandolae from deepening. The real Mr. Jenkins gives himself up to force Sporos to deepen. Sporos then realizes how important it is for him to deepen and he obeys. As her third task (for the other two were to name Mr. Jenkins and help or force Sporos to Deepen) Meg was to save Mr. Jenkins from the Ecthroi and luckily she succeeds. In completing their task's, Meg, Proginoskes, Mr. Jenkins and Calvin return to their world and are rewarded with the fact that they had saved Charles Wallace. Hey, its just another day in the lives of the Murry family.
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Summary: A Wind in the Door, A Book Review
Review: A Wind in the Door By: Nolen Elam This marvelous book, written by Madeleine L'Engle, is loved by many young readers throughout the country because of its terrific combinations of elements, like combining science fiction with reality drama. An example of this book's ability to combine elements of science fiction and reality drama is displayed when a normal girl and her friends are plunged into an epic space battle inside of little Charles Wallace's mitochondria. Meg, her school teacher, Mr. Jenkins, her friend, Calvin, and her Cheribum companion, Proginoskes, must help Sporos, one of Charles Wallace's forandolae, and the rest of Charles Wallace's farandolae Deepen to save the young boy's life. For the forandolae to Deepen they must set themselves apart from the other young forandolae and become stationary sages within Charles Wallace's body.
Personally, I liked this novel a lot more than some of the other books that I read this summer. I preferred reading A Wind in the Door versus Fifth Chinese Daughter because A Wind in the Door expands your imagination because of its science fiction qualities, like its introduction of new names and new ideas. Fifth Chinese Daughter is a great book, but I prefer the adventures of Madeleine L'Engle's collection of novels. This is in fact one of the best books that I have ever read. I would recommend this novel to anyone interested in science fiction because I would really like to share this great piece of literature with others.
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Summary: A Wind in the Door by Madelline L'Engle
Review: A Wind in the Door, by Madeline L'Engle, is an extremely moving and exciting book. In this sequel to A Wrinkle in Time, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace team up with snakes, teachers, mitochondria, and a Cherubum called Progo. It all starts one blustery day when Charles Wallace claims to have seen a drove of dragons in the twin's vegetable garden. Meg and Calvin then learn that Charles Wallace could have an extremely deadly condition: his mitochondria are dying. Charles Wallace is in danger of being X-ed.
This book sucks you in and won't let go until you have felt all of the emotion running rampant throughout. The story teaches the fact that amount doesn't matter, everything has a name, and it also teaches true, unconditional love.
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Summary: Wow! A Journey Through Spirit, Soul, and Body
Review: L'Engle blows me away. She nevers dumbs down her language or ideas for a younger audience. She treats readers with respect and intelligence, so much so that I, as an adult, find her books incredibly fascinating and thought-provoking. "The Wind in the Door" is as good as its predecessor "A Wrinkle in Time." Although connected, this book can be read alone. The people and creatures are both loveable and loathsome. Meg's character is great, and her family is just quirky enough that we fall in love with them. This time, it's her brother Charles Wallace who is in grave danger. Only as Meg and others enter his body as miniscule entities can they fight the enemies that threaten to kill him. We discover that Echthroi are fallen angels/demons, intent on destroying the universe, and we also find a cherubim named Proginoskes who is there to help Meg and her friend Calvin in the spiritual battle. Mixing elements of "The Fantastic Voyage" and "Innerspace" with elements of "This Present Darkness," L'Engle gives us a story that somehow has application in myriad ways. It's a story of spiritual deliverance, of math and time debates, of character maturity, even of a young girl learning to love her unloveable school principle. All this in 203 pages. This is one of the best bargains going. No wonder these books are still around after thirty years; "The Time Quartet" stands the test of time.
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Summary: Fantastic Sequel to A Wrinkle In Time
Review: When six-year-old Charles Wallace begins telling his older sister, Meg Murry, that there are dragons in the garden, she immediately begins to worry. It's bad enough that he is being beaten up at school everyday, thanks to his extreme intelligence, and that he is seriously ill with some strange disease, and now this. But Meg soon finds out that Charles Wallace is right. There are dragons in the garden. Dragons who have come to help Charles Wallace fight his sickness, before it's too late, and to take Meg, and her great friend, Calvin O'Keefe, on a most terrifying, yet at the same time, wonderful journey into space, where they must battle evil to save Charles Wallace's life, and their own. This was a fantastic sequel to A WRINKLE IN TIME. As usual, Meg Murry brings femininity to the group of three, along with tons of intelligence. While Calvin O'Keefe brings bravery. I was a little disappointed in the lack of Charles Wallace in this installment of the TIME QUARTET, but L'Engle makes up for it with quirky, fast-paced dialogue and adventure. A must-read for all fantasy fans. Erika Sorocco
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Summary: Not My Type of Literature
Review: (...)BR>What I could get out of the book was that the star charcater Charles Wallace was sick, badly ill, and his sister, Meg, is really worried for him, and makes it clear she would do anything to help him get better. Then, the one thing I liked most of this book, the plot immediatley comes to play as Charles takes Meg out into a field near their home and tells her there are 'a drive of dragons' somewhere. But at first Meg doesn't see anything. But later on she actually sees this 'drive of dragons' is truly a creature named Progo(well the name's longer than that but this is what Meg calls him throughout the story.) He's a science-fiction masterpiece with many wings and eyes. This creature sparks a journey that involves Meg, her supposed boyfriend named Calvin, and Progo itself as they are assigned to help save Charles from fatally evil beings called the Echthroi, who want to destroy Charles, as well as the world itself.
This book just wasn't my type of literature, but I didn't hate it. I just wasn't into the novel; I didn't feel any sort of connection like you should in a book.
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Summary: Size DOESN'T matter
Review: This is the second book in the "Time Quartet," of which "A Wrinkle in Time" is first. "Wind" again focuses on the Murry family, with high school girl, Meg, as the main character. Meg's extraordinary younger brother, Charles Wallace, seems to be ill -he is out of breath a lot, tires quickly, and Meg's mother seems worried about him, too. Meg is definitely concerned when Charles Wallace starts talking about having seen dragons in the pasture. While this is going on with the family, Meg's mother, a scientist, is busy trying to locate and prove the existence of farandolae within the mitochondria of living cells. It turns out that Charles Wallace suffers from "mitochondritis," which is causing his lack of energy. The little boy could be dying. Meg and her boyfriend Calvin find themselves in a position to help Charles Wallace along with help from a "Teacher," Blajeny, and a cherubim (the alleged dragons), Proginoskes. But, first, Meg has to identify the real Mr. Jenkins, the principal of the village elementary school and her personal nemesis, among three identical Mr. Jenkinses as a test. When that is over, Meg, Calvin, Progo, et al., find themselves inside Charles Wallace's mitochondria, with a farandola, Sporos, who doesn't want to do what he is supposed to do as his part of the life cycle of the mitochondria, the cell, and of Charles Wallace - not to mention the galaxy and the universe. Meg and companions must find a way to defeat the evil that is turning Sporos and his peers from participating in the growth and health of the universe. In this book, L'Engle introduces some new vocabulary in the series, "kything," which is a kind of mental telepathy in which Meg can communicate with her brother and Calvin without words, and "ecthroi" which are the evil destroyers of the good in the universe. It is ecthroi who impersonate Mr. Jenkins and ecthroi who try to keep Sporos from deepening within the mitochondria for the ultimate health of Charles Wallace. An interesting aspect of this book is L'Engle's focus on the irrelevance of size. She points out through her characters that a farandola is as tiny to a human as a human is to a galaxy. Her story centers around the evil that can occur on a microbiological level. This book is for young adults, but I liked it better as an adult reader, as there were things about it I hadn't noticed before. I recommend it, though I didn't find it as well done as "Wrinkle."
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Summary: A vintage L'Engle blend of science and spirituality.
Review: In the first of the "Kairos" books, "A Wrinkle in Time", Madeleine L'Engle took Meg Murry, Charles Wallace Murry, and Calvin O'Keefe on a quest through the macrocosm of time and space. In this second book, "A Wind in the Door", she adds an even deeper dimension to her fictional world--which she makes as real to us as our world, sometimes even more real--by sending them on a journey into the microcosm of the human body. How is it possible for a human being to enter a human body, you may ask, as did the still-irritable, yet still-lovable, Meg Murry. In a special class that teaches universal truths, rather than the imports and exports of Nicaragua, Meg, Calvin, Mr. Jenkins, and the also-human readers will meet a cherubim who has memorized the names of the stars . . . speak to a farandola inside one of Charles Wallace's cells . . . watch the birth of a star "small" enough to hold in a human hand . . . and ultimately learn that size, number, order, and anything that can be measured does not matter. What do matter are names, for "He knows them all by name" . . . even the little stars so far away from inhabited planets that only those who see without eyes know their names. The loss of a star is no more and no less tragic to the Universe than the death of a young boy. Everything we does matters. Everything we touch sends ripples into the cosmos--the cosmos within and the cosmos without. This time, the mission is to save Charles Wallace's life. Annihilators called the Echthroi want to X him, as they want to X everything else in the Universe. As the book's characters were bound to fight them in the story, we are bound to fight them in real life. This is adventure on a grand scale! Though the literary critic in me sees a lot of less-than-perfect elements in this novel, I still gave "A Wind in the Door" five stars because what matters most about it is its message. L'Engle's plot twists and fictional inventions make even me raise my eyebrows a few times, but her passion never fails to captivate me. Without fail, it draws me into a world too real to be imaginary and gives me faith in my own world.
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Summary: Fabulous!
Review: At the beginning there were two long and boring chapters, and I thought the book would not be that great after all. Then at Chapter 3, I began to sense that the book would be better. I loved the test to find the real Mr. Jenkins at Chapters 5-6, and the last few chapters were a little scary but they were the best.
"Her voice issued from her lips almost without volition, cold, calm, emotionless. 'Mr. Jenkins Three---'
He stepped forward, smiling triumphantly.
'No. You're not the real Mr. Jenkins. You're much too powerful. You'd never have to be taken away from a regional school you couldn't control and made principal of a grade school you couldn't control, either.' She looked at Mr. Jenkins One and Two.'
I absolutely loved this book!
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Summary: Another world
Review: What if you knew of a world inside of you. A world so small that it was impossible to sense even with the most powerful microscope. What if you knew that if any thing happend to it, it would throw off the entire universe, giving a victory to evil,and killing you.This book can give you the answer.
It is the story of a girl's fight to save her brother. The story of a battle of good against evil,and it is the story of the harmony that connects us all. Meg has been given three tests if she fails, who knows what might happen. I liked the excitement and mystery in this book. Sure it was confusing, but I liked that. It really makes you think. If you enjoyed A Wrinkle in Time, then you'll enjoy this book.
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