In Anticipation of the ‘Wrinkle in Time’ Movie

Because I knew you were concerned for me, yes, we did finally go see The Last Jedi last weekend.* But it was during the previews when I suddenly squeezed my husband’s arm and hissed, “This is it!” at him, which probably just confused him because this was a trailer and he thought we’d come to see Star Wars. He figured it out once the title came up, of course: A Wrinkle In Time all sparkly and sci-fi. Oh, right, my favorite book, the reason I’d insisted we give our daughter a name he still can’t spell after nearly nine years.**

I still don’t want to pin too many hopes on any movie adaptation matching my expectations. But my “this is it” was not so much about the movie itself. It was seeing my favorite story being advertised, all big and special-effective, there for everyone going to the top-grossing movie of the year to see and wonder about. There would certainly be people like me, ones going, “I loved that book! I wonder what the movie will be like?” But I’m most excited about the ones going, “I think I read that once, maybe I should read it again,” or even better, “hmm, that looks interesting, maybe I’ll check out the book.” Interests are being piqued!

Yesterday I told my director I thought I could do a Wrinkle In Time library program to piggyback on the hype of the movie coming out. “Is that…” she seemed to puzzle over how to ask it “…is that a thing? Is there a character people like? What character is in that?”

“…Meg Murry?” I answered. I mean, it’s not like she’s a costumed character waving at kids in a theme park. She’s not a name, or a brand, like Harry Potter or Captain Underpants. She’s a super important character to me, personally, but I don’t think that’s what my director had in mind. “No, it’s the book in general, it’s landmark juvenile science fiction, and Disney’s got this star-studded movie coming out and—”

“But is that something people know?”

Well, that was my point. Many people do know the book, but now the movie is bringing it to so many more. And now the hype is starting. It had started, but with just over two months to premiere time, it’s escalating. And I want to be on top of that wave.

I have poured way, way more thought into the source material than the average person has. Six years ago, to celebrate A Wrinkle In Time‘s 50th anniversary, I outlined a whole series of posts on my personal blog, deep-diving into various aspects of the book. I looked at the characters, the science, the theology, the links to other books and to society at large. I’ve already plundered some of what I wrote then for articles here on GeekMom, but with movie time bearing down on us, it’s time to go all out. As you can see from the picture, my annotations are still at the ready, and as we count down to the movie premiere on March 9, I’ll be bringing you more deep thoughts on A Wrinkle In Time each week-ish!

We’ll start with a look at the science at play, probably this next Monday, because it’s Stephen Hawking’s birthday and that just seems appropriate. But I’ll be adding to this post as a master post for the whole adventure, and first I’ll link to what I’ve already posted on GeekMom on the topic:

• “Madeleine L’Engle on Courage From Stories” is where I give an overview of how I found A Wrinkle In Time, what it means to me, and what happened when I wrote to the author. I also wrote this follow-up piece on “Dispelling the Myth of Myth,” that is less directly about L’Engle, but she and her philosophies are certainly in there.
• “Saluting that Most Stubborn of Everygirls, Meg Murry” is directly adapted from one of the character studies I did on my blog. The director of the new Wrinkle movie herself, Ava DuVernay, ReTweeted this article when it came out, which made my life for the day. You’ll note that the movie’s release date has been moved up since then—I would have been giving you three months of anticipation-rambling, otherwise!
• I wrote two posts about this movie adaptation itself, one in regards to its casting—”A Minority-Full ‘Wrinkle In Time’ Is All Right With Me“—and the one I linked to above about adaptations in general, “What Are Your Movie Adaptation Non-Negotiables?“

I’ll add more posts here as they come out, such as:

• “There IS Such a Thing as a Tesseract: Science in A Wrinkle In Time” tells you all you ever wanted to know that I can make apply to Wrinkle about tesseracts, interdimensional travel, string theory, and the absolutely true fact that Mr.Dr. Murry works for S.H.I.E.L.D.
• “Judging A Wrinkle in Time By Its Cover,” in which I gather up cover art from across time and space and give you my professional opinion on which covers work best.
• “On Genre and A Wrinkle in Time,” in which I realize that speculative fiction is not a straight line continuum between science fiction and fantasy, but is, in fact, a tesseract.
• “Mrs Who and Verbalizing Through Quotes,” explores the Mrs Ws, why they’re not the Mrs. Ws, and particularly the forms their communication takes.
• “Calvin O’Keefe: Closet Geek!” in which a popular jock stumbles upon a family of uber-nerds and, for the first time in his life, feels like he’s going home.
• “My First OTP, Meg and Calvin” in which we explore the sweetness of a subtle teenage romance and the unexpected challenges this adds to the growth of the characters.
• “Me, Meg Murry-O’Keefe, and a Woman’s Choices” explores what we know about adult Meg from the rest of  L’Engle’s books, and seeks to lay to rest any complaints people may have about Meg choosing to be a SAHM instead of a renowned scientist.
• “Throw a Wrinkle in Time Party in the Comfort of Your Own Home Laboratory” with some ideas I used at a library program once.
• “Age, Audience, and A Wrinkle In Time,” is my post-movie reaction to other people’s post-movie reactions.
• and finally, “What to Read After A Wrinkle In Time“! Self-explanatory.

And if you’re really thirsting for more, I’ve invoked A Wrinkle In Time in otherwise unrelated other posts, too: I discussed Charles Wallace’s probable ASD and the Savant trope in this post about labeling; and gave myself, via Meg, some encouraging words from Calvin about my own tough-to-label differences. I’ve twice noted Meg’s role model status as a hero, and especially as a heroINE, with glasses. And the man who wrote my favorite song is forever linked to the woman who wrote my favorite book through fan mail and through him dying on her birthday.

And I’m not the only GeekMom who’s covered A Wrinkle In Time! Melissa Wiley also celebrated the 50th anniversary with her post, “Tesser With Me,” and later that year GeekMom hosted a book club discussion of it on the old Wired site. In this post from 2011, “How Childhood Books Make Us Who We Are,” Andrea calls Wrinkle “game-changing.” In the comments, you’ll even see a pre-GeekMom-writing me gushing fangirlishly about the whole post—let alone Wrinkle!

And in 2014, Ruth wrote a piece that I will absolutely be referring to in next week’s post on the science of A Wrinkle In Time: “Tesse-whatsit? The Science-ish of Tesseracts in Science Fiction.”

I hope you’ll tesser back here for more!

*It was far too long but that’s my only complaint. I loved it. I especially loved Old Luke—the character progression seemed just right to me. I’m kind of obsessed with Old Luke right now. Also, I tweeted that to Mark Hamill and he Liked my Tweet so I’m still over the that’s-no-moon for awhile.

**He’s dyslexic, I forgive him. To be honest, she’s in third grade and she still avoids writing “Madeleine” out if she can help it.