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Image credit: Photo by Christos Katsiaouni

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The Moment of Tenderness (2020) — Johdanto — 166 kappaletta

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Why is this book combined with other books?, Bug Collectors (huhtikuu 2018)

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I had six picture books left at home from the library. I am not in the mood for picture books but I wanted to read these books before the end of 2023, and preferably before Christmas. The only way I was able to read the five I read yesterday was to forego writing reviews for them, not even short ones. They were two 5 star books, one 4 star book and two 3 star books, all of them worthy of reviews but I didn’t feel up to writing anything so I just rated the books. Because there are reviews posted for all of them I am fine with not adding my own.

This is the sixth and last book I have at home from the library.

Even though I am not in the mood to write reviews I wanted to review this book because the book A Wrinkle in Time has meant so much to me. I was introduced to it by my fourth grade teacher who read it to my class when it was a brand new standalone book. We loved it so much that the next book he read to us was Meet the Austins, then two years old and also at that time still a standalone book. Both books became favorites of mine and still are among my favorite books.

I have read the book Becoming Madeleine: A Biography of the Author of A Wrinkle in Time by Her Granddaughters, the lead author being the same as for this picture book.

I enjoy reading about writers’ lives and seeing how events in their lives make their way into their books. In [author:Madeleine L'Engle|106]’s case it’s a lot. I recognize so much from her life as I read her books, including her novels for young readers.

I do find it interesting that her strong Christian faith didn’t make it into this book but that’s fine with me personally and hopefully it will make the book (and the author’s books) appeal to widest possible audience. This is a narrative that sugar coats some things about this woman’s life but I’m okay with that too. Thinking about the intended audience there is no need to focus on childhood and adolescent traumas. If readers are interested to learn more about L’Engle there are many other books by her and about her for them to read. This is a lovely little book that I think does well at what it set out to do.

I love the illustrations. They’re beautiful, colorful, expressive and have interesting details, and they fit perfectly with the narrative text.

There is a useful section in the back with a lot of additional information and there is a list of the author’s books (and their series) for young people. I wish the books had been listed with their original publication dates but even without them I’m grateful for the list. I appreciate how readers are directed to The International Dark Sky Association (darksky.org) and given reasons why. I’m off to look at the website.

I’ve noticed that today’s children and adults don’t gravitate to reading [book:A Wrinkle in Time|545873] and I think that’s unfortunate. Yes, it now has to be read as historical fiction in addition to speculative fiction but it’s a timeless story. I still recommend it to readers of all ages.

This picture book was fun for me to read. I can see it inspiring some children to write or pursue other creative endeavors.

4-1/2 stars
… (lisätietoja)
 
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Lisa2013 | 1 muu arvostelu | Dec 24, 2023 |
First sentence: Once when Madeleine was very small, her parents woke her and took her outside to see the splendor of the starry night sky. It was both dazzlingly dark and full of light, and it seemed to go on forever. She could hear the stars singing, telling her that she was part of something beautiful, generous, and loving. The sining of the stars filled Madeleine with wonder and excitement, and she realized there was more to her world than daytime and ordinary things. She had big questions.

Premise/plot: A picture book biography of Madeleine L'Engle, author of Wrinkle in Time. Like many picture book biographies this one is limited in scope.

My thoughts: What you see is what you get--no more, no less. It is a picture book biography of children's book author, Madeleine L'Engle. Is it a picture book for younger readers or older readers? I'm not absolutely sure which--or even if it's both. Younger readers probably aren't familiar with A Wrinkle in Time.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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blbooks | 1 muu arvostelu | Feb 17, 2023 |
Highly recommended to all fans of Madeleine L'Engle's books, to young people who have specific goals, especially if they want to be writers or artists or have aspirations to succeed in a particular field or endeavor. This book is a gift to fans of her books. Children and teens who have passion for writing will be particularly interested in this biography. I also recommend this to readers who’ve had an important grandchildren-grandparent bond because that part of the story clearly comes through too.

I inhaled this book in less than 2 days. It’s a book I wish I could own.

I have loved this author since I was 9 years old and read Meet the Austins/Meet the Austins published two years earlier, and A Wrinkle in Time newly published that year. Those two books helped me get through my childhood and have never been off my top 10 list and that is saying a great deal. Despite being a huge fan of many of her books, and researching many people throughout my lifetime, for some reason I’d never made a point to learn much about her life. Readers can glean a lot about her early years without reading a biography. It’s obvious just from reading her books that she must have commonalities with Meg, with Vicky, with Camilla, with Flip, but this book gives details and they were so much fun to learn. She also wrote autobiographical works of her later years, but I’ve read just one or two.

Now I’d like to read even more about her, but this book was extremely satisfying. The authors, her two granddaughters, deliberately chose to cover her life only up to the point of the publication of A Wrinkle in Time, and given that the book is written for middle grade readers, I think it was a sound decision, but now as an older adult I’d enjoy an account of her entire life, more than what she revealed in her writings.

The photos and journal entries and letters, all the materials were wonderful to see. Marvelous for fans to have access to these things!

I was impressed with what an accomplished person she was!

I will say that some of the images of her early poems, letters, and journal entries were so tiny on the pages that I needed a magnifying glass to read some of their text. It was well worth the effort to do that.

Bonus points from me: Not too far into this book I realized something about my own parents, similar to Madeleine’s in one way, and so I learned a bit about my life too.

The book is well written and very well organized, and I appreciate that this account shows Madeleine as a well-rounded person, with many positive attributes and with flaws too, and shows happy and difficult events in her life. I appreciated the Epilogue and Author’s Note at the end of the book. Though some tragedies are mentioned along with her triumphs, I do think the book is suitable for middle grade kids and adolescents and adults can enjoy it too. I certainly did, maybe even more than I would have as a young person. I was completely engrossed while reading this.

It was incredibly hard for me to write a review for this book because I knew I couldn’t do it justice. I’ve never been able to write proper reviews for any of this author’s books; as usual, it’s hardest for me to write reviews for books I’ve loved the most.

And now I want to reread her books all over again and read ones I haven’t yet read. L’Engle was a prolific author.

Since this is a biography these aren’t spoilers in the traditional sense but I think it would be most satisfying for readers to read this information in the book proper, so I’m putting the rest of the review in spoiler tags:

I LOVE this quote (on page 79) from a journal entry she wrote while in college: “I made a discovery yesterday. I don’t suppose it’s an original sort of discovery at all, but at any rate, I found it for myself. When you write anything – a poem or a story – it’s yours only as long as only you know anything about it. As soon as anybody reads it, it becomes partly theirs, too. They put things into it that you never thought of, and they don’t see many things that you thought plain.” (If only every author understood this.)

Wow! Now I know from where she gets the store from in the Meet the Austins book.

It’s so funny re the recent AWIT movie which I’m unlikely to see despite a great choice of actress for Meg – I’ve been saying it should have been unknowns for the Mrs Whatsit & Co (and not Oprah, Reese, Mindy) because the book is about Meg, and Charles Wallace, and Calvin, not about the Mrss and too much attention is being paid to them in the movie trailers, so it was fascinating to see her working title for A Wrinkle in Time.

I actually was going to add a lot more parts of the book that particularly struck me, but I’m hoping that readers will read the book for themselves.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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Lisa2013 | Apr 20, 2018 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
2
Also by
2
Jäseniä
105
Suosituimmuussija
#183,191
Arvio (tähdet)
½ 3.6
Kirja-arvosteluja
3
ISBN:t
8

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