History Literature / AWrinkleInTime

The first book in the Time Quintet series by Creator/MadeleineLEngle, ''A Wrinkle in Time'' opens with the well-honored line "[[ItWasADarkAndStormyNight It was a dark and stormy night]]" and the appearance of a stranger at the Murry household. The stranger, who calls herself Mrs Whatsit, turns out to be much more than the dotty old lady she initially comes across as. Soon, Meg Murry, her precocious younger brother Charles Wallace, and her schoolmate Calvin find themselves on an interplanetary and interdimensional journey with Mrs Whatsit and her equally odd buddies Mrs Who and Mrs Which to rescue Meg's missing father. To tell more would spoil your enjoyment of this unusual and fantastic (in more than one way) book.

Despite the prominent Newbery medal on the cover, ''A Wrinkle in Time'' does ''not'' follow the DeathByNewberyMedal rule; in fact, it's firmly on the Idealism side of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. Well, sort of.

The further adventures of the Murrys and, especially, Meg are detailed in the sequels: ''Literature/AWindInTheDoor'', ''Literature/ASwiftlyTiltingPlanet'', ''Literature/ManyWaters'', and ''Literature/AnAcceptableTime''; the five books are known informally as the "Time Quintet." Subsequent books centered around Meg and Calvin's daughter Poly include ''The Arm of the Starfish'', ''Dragons in the Waters'', and ''A House Like a Lotus''.

* LecherousStepparent: Implied when Meg is able to see visions of her mother-in-law's teen years. The mother-in-law's widowed mother married a man who physically abused his wife and stepson, and was not shy about making sexual advances toward his stepdaughter. It doesn't seem, from what we're shown, that it ever advanced as far as outright sexual abuse (probably so as not to scare younger readers), but the implication that he wanted to do it is clearly there.

The further adventures of the Murrys and, especially, Meg are detailed in the sequels: ''Literature/AWindInTheDoor'', ''Literature/ASwiftlyTiltingPlanet'', and ''Literature/ManyWaters''; the four books are known informally as the "Time Quartet." Subsequent books centered around Meg and Calvin's daughter Poly, ''The Arm of the Starfish'', ''Dragons in the Waters'', ''A House Like a Lotus'' and ''An Acceptable Time''. The "Time Quartet" with ''An Acceptable Time'' form the "Time Quintet" of the series.

* WeHaveBeenResearchingPhlebotinumForYears: Meg and Charles find out that their father went missing because [[spoiler:the government had him experimenting with tesseracts,which left him stranded on Camazotz.]]

The further adventures of the Murrys and, especially, Meg are detailed in the sequels: ''Literature/AWindInTheDoor'', ''Literature/ASwiftlyTiltingPlanet'', ''Literature/ManyWaters'' and ''A Suitable Time'', followed by a series of books centered around Meg and Calvin's daughter Poly, ''The Arm of the Starfish'', ''Dragons in the Waters'', ''A House Like a Lotus'' and ''An Acceptable Time''.

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* BigBrotherIsWatching: The people of Camazotz are all, to the extent that they are capable of emotion, vaguely worried of the consequences of being spotted acting outside their pre-defined roles to help the children. Their concerns are not misplaced: we later see a child whose regimented "ball playing" was out-of-sync being "reconditioned" with pain to put him back on-rhythm.

* GreenEyes: Meg has them, and Calvin is so dazzled when he sees them that he tells her to keep them hidden behind her glasses.

* BizarreAlienSenses: Mag figures that the blind inhabitants of Ixchel probably have senses that a human couldn't imagine.

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* BizarreAlienSenses: Mag figures that the blind inhabitants of Uriel probably have senses that a human couldn't imagine.

* DarkIsEvil: Partly straight, partly averted. The "clear" darkness of space is contrasted with the "fearsome" darkness of the Black Thing, after the star attacked and wounded it. And on Camazotz, IT's power often manifests as a pulsing, rhythmic [[LightIsNotGood light]].

* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Charles Wallace, although his peers would be more likely to taunt LonersAreFreaks. Admittedly, his (vaguely-defined) mental abilities -- like {{Telepathy}}, maybe -- ain't quite Normal. But the horrors of enforced Normality are what the story's all about. The entire Murry family really. Sandy and Dennys are the only ones to fit in and later books imply that they downplay their intelligence avoid this trope.

The further adventures of the Murrys and, especially, Meg are detailed in the sequels: ''Literature/AWindInTheDoor'', ''Literature/ASwiftlyTiltingPlanet'', ''Literature/ManyWaters'' and ''A Suitable Time'', followed by a series of books centered around Meg and Calvin's daughter Poly, ''Literature/TheArmOfTheStarfish'', ''Literature/DragonsInTheWaters'', ''Literature/AHouseLikeALotus'' and ''Literature/AnAcceptableTime''.

* DarkIsNotEvil: The inhabitants of Camazotz' sister planet Ixchel are scary dark beasts, but also very kind and wise, and are fully engaged in fighting the Black Thing.

** Finally, both Averted and Lampshaded with the Beasts of Ixchel. They physically resemble StarfishAliens more than the [[UncannyValley seemingly-human]] inhabitants of Camazotz. They're little more then humanoid outlines covered in tentacles and are telepathic, but they are the dead opposite of IT: Warm, gentle, empathic and life-giving, they are totally dedicated to fighting the Black Thing. They also have no eyes, and have no concept at all of light or sight.

* HiveMind: Downplayed on Camazotz. While the people there have their own minds, after a fashion, they have no individuality at all and their wills are ultimately subservient to the will of IT, which, it it implied, contains their collective memories.
* HumanAliens: The people of Camazotz. They look just like ordinary people on Earth, living in an ordinary suburb... except ''they all do exactly the same things at the same time.'' And then our protagonists meet [[TheDragon The Man with Red Eyes.]]

* KarmaHoudini: IT gets away scot-free in the original novel. Not so in the TV movie. Then again, the TV movie has [[spoiler:Meg freeing an ''entire planet'' from brain-washing by [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath making one awkward, rambling speech]], [[AntiClimax then winning]].]] Later books imply that IT and the other "forces of evil" out there have not ''escaped'' their karma per se; they will get what's coming to them as soon as a "good guy" is able to fight them off. Meg might not have been strong enough to [[spoiler:love IT]], but next time, who knows?

* MeaningfulName: The planets Camazotz and Ixchel are named for the Mayan deities of death/sacrifice and birth, rainbows, and medicine, respectively.

** According to the author in a note at the end of the first book, "Mrs. Murry" uses the period at the end of Mrs. because she is American. The British spelling is "Mrs" without punctuation - she preferred using the British spelling, sans punctuation, to indicate the foreignness of the Mrs W's.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: Mrs Whatsit is over 2 billion years old, and she's described as being very ''young'' compared to her two companions whom she looks up to.

The latter was directed by [[Film/{{Selma}} Ava DuVernay]] and written by [[Disney/{{Frozen}} Jennifer Lee]], starring Storm Reid as Meg, with Creator/ReeseWitherspoon, Creator/MindyKaling and Creator/OprahWinfrey as Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which respectively, Creator/ChrisPine as Dr. Alex Murray, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dr. Kate Murray, Levi Miller as Calvin, Zach Galifianakis as the Happy Medium, André Holland as Principal Jenkins, and Bellamy Young, Rowan Blanchard, and Will [=McCormack=] rounding out the cast.

Disney made a [[TheFilmOfTheBook movie adaption]] in 2003, and a different one in 2018.

!!The 2003 Adaptation contains the following tropes:
* CoversAlwaysLie: The DVD cover features the three main characters on a winged ''horse'' above a medieval-looking castle, neither of which remotely resembles anything that appears in the film.
* NeverTrustATrailer: Much of what you see in the trailer is not what's in the movie, with some shots even ripped from other films!

The further adventures of the Murrys and, especially, Meg are detailed in the sequels: ''Literature/AWindInTheDoor'', ''Literature/ASwiftlyTiltingPlanet'', ''Literature/ManyWaters'' and ''A Suitable Time'', followed by a series of books centered around Meg and Calvin's daughter Poly.

Disney will be releasing a [[TheFilmOfTheBook movie adaption]] in 2018, directed by [[Film/{{Selma}} Ava DuVernay]] and written by [[Disney/{{Frozen}} Jennifer Lee]], starring Storm Reid as Meg, with Creator/ReeseWitherspoon, Creator/MindyKaling and Creator/OprahWinfrey as Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which respectively, Creator/ChrisPine as Dr. Alex Murray, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Dr. Kate Murray, Levi Miller as Calvin, Zach Galifianakis as the Happy Medium, André Holland as Principal Jenkins, and Bellamy Young, Rowan Blanchard, and Will [=McCormack=] rounding out the cast.

* AmbiguousSituation: We never learn the relationship between IT and the Black Thing. is IT controlling the Black Thing? Is the Black Thing controlling IT? Is IT something else entirely? We never find out.

* UltimateEvil: Assuming IT isn't the Black Thing we don't learn much about the Black Thing other than it is MadeOfEvil.