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'A Wrinkle In Time's' Message For A New Generation Of Girls

This image released by Disney shows Storm Reid, right, and Levi Miller in a scene from "A Wrinkle In Time." (Atsushi Nishijima/Disney via AP)
This image released by Disney shows Storm Reid, right, and Levi Miller in a scene from "A Wrinkle In Time." (Atsushi Nishijima/Disney via AP)

From novel to now the big screen, we’ll unpack “A Wrinkle in Time’s” message for a new generation of girls.

Guests:

Aramide Tinubu, film critic. (@midnightrami)

Charlotte Jones Voiklis, “A Wrinkle in Time” author Madaleine L’Engle’s granddaughter and co-author of a biography of her grandmother, “Becoming Madeleine.” (@charlottejv)

Salamishah Tillet, associate professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. (@salamishah)

From The Reading List: 

New York Times: I Saw Myself In ‘A Wrinkle In Time.’ But I Had To Work Hard. — “Readers have long hailed Meg as a heroine of science fiction, but the 1962 novel is beloved as much for its unconventional female protagonist as L’Engle is for weaving together complex ideas about religion, Cold War politics and astrophysics within the genre of children’s literature.”

NBC News: ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ Is A Letter To Black Girls, Not Critics— “It was never going to be an easy task for acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay to bring “A Wrinkle in Time” to the big screen; with 26 rejections, author Madeleine L’Engle had a tumultuous journey to get her story published at all. The acclaimed children’s book tells the story of teenager Meg Murry (portrayed now by Storm Reid) as she grapples with the pitfalls of adolescence while coming to terms with the disappearance of her physicist father, Dr. Alex Murry (portrayed by Chris Pine).”

Madeline L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” was almost never published. Rejected for being too long, too female, too strange. The book went on to sell more than 10 million copies and enjoy the distinction of being one of the most frequently banned books of all time. Point is, critics get it wrong. And what they don’t get about Ava DuVernay’s Disney blockbuster version of Wrinkle is this. L’Engle said the book was her “psalm of praise to life, my stand for life against death.” DuVerney’s movie is that psalm told today for young children of color who need it most.

This hour, On Point: “A Wrinkle in Time,” on screen.

Meghna Chakrabarti

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.