Best Books About Family-Friendly Fantasy by Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L’Engle is one of the most beloved writers in children’s literature - the author of A Wrinkle in Time, one of the great novels of the twentieth century, and the creator of a body of work that blends fantasy, science fiction, and theology with a warmth that has never gone out of style. And her writing is, for the most part, wonderfully clean: no profanity, no graphic content, nothing that would make a parent hesitate. The darkness in L’Engle is cosmic - the battle between light and darkness, the problem of evil - rather than graphic, and her books can be shared with readers of almost any age.

L’Engle wrote far more than A Wrinkle in Time, and not all of her books are equally accessible. If you are new to her - or if you have read A Wrinkle in Time and want to know what else she wrote - this guide will take you through her best work, organized by what each book offers.

The Essential Start: A Wrinkle in Time#

A Wrinkle in Time (1962)#

One of the most beloved novels of the twentieth century, and the essential L’Engle: Meg Murry, an awkward teenager who does not fit in, sets out with her friend Calvin and her brilliant little brother Charles Wallace to rescue her father - a scientist who has disappeared while working on a secret project. Their journey takes them through a tesseract - a wrinkle in time - to the planet Camazotz, where an evil intelligence called IT controls everything.

It is the essential L’Engle for every age: a fantasy, a science-fiction adventure, and a deeply serious book about love, courage, and the fight against the forces that would flatten the human spirit. It won the Newbery Medal, and it has never stopped being read. If you read only one L’Engle book, this is the one.

A Wrinkle in Time, and Why It Endures#

The book’s power comes from its heroine: Meg Murry is not a chosen one - she is an awkward, angry, failing teenager who is told she is the problem, and the book is about her discovering that her very strangeness is her strength. The book’s famous climax - Meg saving Charles Wallace not with a weapon or a clever trick but with love - is one of the great moments in children’s literature, and it is the book in miniature: an argument that the things the world undervalues - stubbornness, love, the refusal to give up - are the things that save us.

The Time Quintet: The Series Around the Wrinkle#

A Wrinkle in Time is the first book of a five-book series - the Time Quintet - and the other four books are essential reading for anyone who loved the first.

A Wind in the Door (1973)#

The second book: Charles Wallace is dying, and Meg, with her friend Calvin, must travel into his body - into his mitochondria - to save him. It is the strangest of the quintet: a journey into the microscopic, full of the cherubim and the farandolae, and an argument about the interconnectedness of all things. It is the essential read for readers who loved the science of the first book.

Many Waters (1986)#

The third published book (and the fourth in the series’ internal chronology): Meg’s twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys, accidentally travel back in time - to the world of Noah, before the flood. It is the most unusual of the quintet: a biblical fantasy, full of nephilim and unicorns, and a book about the world before the flood. It is the essential read for readers who want L’Engle’s theology at its most explicit.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)#

The fourth published book: Charles Wallace, on Thanksgiving Day, must travel through time - with the unicorn Gaudior - to prevent a nuclear war. It is the most mythic of the quintet, full of the “might-have-beens” of history, and it is the essential read for readers who loved the cosmic scale of the first book.

An Acceptable Time (1989)#

The final book of the quintet: Meg’s daughter Polly - now a teenager - visits her grandparents and falls through time, to a world three thousand years in the past. It is the essential read for the series’ conclusion, and it brings the family’s story full circle.

If You Loved the Murry Family: The Family at the Center#

The heart of L’Engle’s books is the Murry family - the brilliant parents, the four children, the love that holds them together. These books are about families of the same kind.

The Time Quintet, and the Family That Saves Each Other#

The quintet is, at bottom, a family saga: the Murrys - scientists and mothers and children - who save each other across time and space. Meg’s love for Charles Wallace is the engine of the first book, and the family’s love is the engine of the whole series. L’Engle’s books are arguments about family: that love is the strongest force there is, that the family is the place where the cosmic battles are fought, and that the people who love you are the people who save you.

A Wrinkle in Time, and the Unconventional Family#

The Murrys are a family of scientists and misfits - the children who do not fit in at school, the parents who are not like other parents - and the book is an argument that the unconventional family is the strong one. Meg’s mother is a scientist; her father is missing; her little brother is a genius; and the book loves them all for exactly what they are.

If You Loved the Science: L’Engle’s Cosmos#

L’Engle’s books are full of real science - the tesseract, the mitochondria, the fifth dimension - and the science is part of the wonder. These books share her love of the cosmos.

A Wrinkle in Time, and the Tesseract#

The book’s great conceit is the tesseract - the wrinkle in time and space that lets you cross the universe by folding it. It is real physics, lovingly explained, and it is the book’s door into the cosmos. The book is an argument about the universe: that it is vast and strange and full of wonder, that science and faith belong together, and that the same love that holds a family together holds the stars in their courses.

A Wind in the Door, and the World Within#

The second book turns the telescope around: the journey into Charles Wallace’s body, into the mitochondria, the tiny powerhouses of the cells. It is the essential read for the science at the smallest scale, and it is an argument about the interconnectedness of all things - the same patterns at every scale, from the galaxies to the cells.

If You Loved the Theology: L’Engle’s Faith#

L’Engle was a deeply religious writer, and her books are full of her faith - but it is a faith of wonder, not of dogma: the battle between light and darkness, the love that saves, the conviction that the universe is good. These books are about the theology.

A Wrinkle in Time, and the Battle of Light and Dark#

The book’s deepest subject is the battle between light and darkness: IT, the evil intelligence of Camazotz, against the Mrs Ws - Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which - the strange beings who guide Meg. The book is an argument about evil: that it is the flattening of the spirit, the demand for conformity, the denial of love - and that it can only be fought with love. It is a theology told as an adventure, and it is why the book has moved readers for sixty years.

Many Waters, and the World Before the Flood#

The book is L’Engle’s most explicit theology: the world of Noah, the nephilim, the flood. It is the essential read for readers who want her faith at its most direct - and it is also one of her strangest and most beautiful books.

The Crosswicks Journal (1972–1980)#

A four-volume journal - A Circle of Quiet, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, The Irrational Season, and Two-Part Invention - in which L’Engle wrote about her life, her faith, her family, and her work. It is the essential read for readers who want to understand the mind behind the books.

If You Loved the Outsider: L’Engle’s Misfits#

Meg Murry is the essential L’Engle protagonist: the outsider, the misfit, the one who does not fit - and the one who turns out to be the hero. L’Engle wrote variations on her again and again. These books have outsiders of the same kind.

A Wrinkle in Time, and the Girl Who Did Not Fit#

Meg begins the book as the problem: the girl who is failing school, who has a temper, who does not fit in. The book’s great gift is the way it honors her: her stubbornness is not a flaw but the thing that saves her brother; her love is not weakness but the only weapon that works. The book is an argument about the misfits - that the ones who do not fit are often the ones the world needs most - and it is why Meg has been beloved for sixty years.

The Austin Family Chronicles#

L’Engle’s other great family series: Vicky Austin, a girl who is not a misfit in the way Meg is but who is an observer, a writer, a girl trying to understand the world. The series begins with Meet the Austins (1960) and includes A Ring of Endless Light (1980), one of her most beloved books. It is the essential read for readers who want L’Engle’s warmth without the cosmic scale.

Camilla Dickinson (1951)#

An earlier novel: Camilla, a teenage girl in New York, navigating her parents’ failing marriage and her own first love. It is the essential read for readers who want L’Engle’s teenage outsiders in a realistic register.

If You Loved the Wonder: Books That Make the Ordinary Strange#

L’Engle’s great gift is her sense of wonder - the ability to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, the cosmic in the domestic. These books share that gift.

A Wrinkle in Time, and the Wonder of the Ordinary#

The book begins in the most ordinary place - Meg’s bedroom, on a dark and stormy night - and it ends across the universe. That movement, from the domestic to the cosmic, is L’Engle’s signature: the same wonder in both, the sense that the universe is full of marvels and that they are as close as your own family. It is the essential read for the wonder.

The Austin Family Chronicles, and the Wonder of Daily Life#

The Austin books find their wonder in the ordinary: the family, the beach, the summer, the small dramas of growing up. It is the essential read for readers who want L’Engle’s wonder in a domestic register.

Building Your Own Shelf: A Reading Order#

Here is a suggested path through L’Engle’s best work:

• Start with A Wrinkle in Time for the essential book.
• Move through the Time Quintet: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time.
• Try Meet the Austins and A Ring of Endless Light for the other great family series.
• Pick up Camilla Dickinson for the realistic register.
• End with the Crosswicks Journal when you want the mind behind the books.

For more books in this spirit, our meaningful clean books for teens list gathers more wholesome, substantial reads, and our meaningful books without explicit content list extends the shelf into stories that are rich without being graphic. The stories section of our site is full of guides like this one, so there is always another world to enter.

Why L’Engle Endures#

Madeleine L’Engle wrote books that have been loved for more than sixty years, and the reason is simple: she wrote about wonder. Her books are full of tesseracts and mitochondria, of unicorns and cherubim, of the battle between light and darkness - and at the center of all of it is love: the love of a family, the love that saves, the love that is the answer to the cosmic questions. Her books are clean in the truest sense - pure of heart, full of light - and they can be shared with readers of almost any age. Meg Murry remains one of the great heroines of children’s literature, and the wrinkle in time is still open for anyone who wants to step through.