It was a dark and stormy night.
Really. The rain and the wind woke me up Thursday night, and I knew what I wanted to write about as my first post on my new blog.
Many of you know that Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton opened his 1830 novel Paul Clifford with the stirring phrase “It was a dark and stormy night,” which became so associated with bad florid prose that San Jose State University annually sponsors the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the best worst opening sentences. And, of course, Snoopy of Peanuts cartoon fame also opts for the dramatic words for the beginning of his many novels.
Extra credit, though, if you also recognize “It was a dark and stormy night” as the first sentence of Madeleine L’Engle’s fantasy novel that won the 1963 Newbery Award, thus assuring its place as a kid-lit classic. Miranda, the 12-year-old narrator of Rebecca Stead’s novel When You Reach Me, knows the beginning of A Wrinkle in Time without looking because she is always re-reading her copy. “I had probably read it a hundred times, which is why it looked so beat-up,” she says.
Ah, Miranda. Know exactly what you mean. After reading When You Reach Me, which uses L’Engle’s time-travel tale as a touchstone, I went in search of my own beat-up Scholastic Book Fair paperback. I re-read it, then re-read Stead’s book, enchanted again by its own artful puzzle plot, with its fantasy elements neatly embedded in the down-to-earth setting of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, circa 1979. Middle-school magical realism, if you will.
Miranda’s everyday world, in which she wonders why her best friend Sal has stopped talking to her and where she is helping her idealistic single mom prep to be a game-show contestant, tilts when she receives four mysterious letters that seem to predict the future. An apartment key also goes missing. And what’s up with the homeless guy – dubbed “the laughing man’’ by Miranda’s mom – who lies with his head under the corner mailbox, and frenemies Marcus with his head in a book (or the clouds) and Julia with her nose in the air and a ready explanation of the nature of time using a ring of diamond chips?
When You Reach Me last week won the Newbery Award from the American Library Association. Hurray! It deserves to be timeless.
(Open Book: I’ve owned my paperback of A Wrinkle in Time for years, and I bought a hardcover When You Reach Me (Random House) last fall. It’s already looking a bit beat-up)
What a thrill of nostalgia the sight of that old “Wrinkle in Time” cover sent through me! That’s the copy I read back when I first read that book, which I have read probably more than anything ever published. I’ve lost my copy somewhere along the way and must survive on a later edition hardback which I love more than anything, as it is signed by Madeleine L’Engle (“Tesser well.”)
Great post, Nancy. Good idea for a blog, too!
Ms. Pate–This is so thrilling! And so clearly and gracefully written. I’m looking forward to all your future posts with anticipation.
yr. obedient former reviewer,
PJ
I discovered your blog because Mary Kay Andrews mentioned it on FB. How exciting to be one of your first readers! You’ve inspired me to read “A Wrinkle in Time” again & to read “When You Reach Me”. Looking forward to your next entry.
Was insane about Wrinkle in Time. Probably would have been diagnosed as OCD back then if anyone had known what it was. Perfect choice for your first blog.
Congrats Nancy on your blog! Great idea! I’ve never read “A Wrinkle In Time” but I’m going to go find a copy this week and then follow up with “When You Reach Me”. Thanks!
I’m dying to read When You Reach Me, so glad you posted this!
I love this post. I love it because I thought I was the only adult still reading youth fiction on purpose. I adore A Wrinkle in Time. I have not read When You Reach Me, however, but will now promptly do so.
My personal fave in the youth literature genre is The Giver. Love it, love it…madly, madly love it. (And yes, I’ll be seeing it at The REP). So many amazing stories out there in the youth literature category that adults sadly miss.
Years ago when I was right out of college, I led an adult book group for women and each month we read a pairing of one adult book and one youth novel…both with a similiar theme. Every single month the entire group loved the youth novel most. 🙂