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shadowkatThe prompt is Name a book you are grateful for.
Hmmm.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
As a child, it was hard to find science fiction novels with female protagonists in the 1970s. There were mystery novels, regular novels, and to a lesser degree fantasy novels that had them, but not quite that many scifi for some reason or other. I'm not saying they weren't out there - just that they weren't easy to find. My Aunt, my mother's oldest sister, who was a sixth grade librarian in Vegas, Nevada - introduced me to science fiction through Madeline L'Engle. She also sent me an interview with the writer. She did the same thing with Zelphia Keatley Snyder, a bit later. In Vegas, they apparently had a school district - with on school that only had sixth graders. She was the librarian for that school in the 1970s and early 80s.
(My Aunt died at the age of 55 from a blood clot - in 2000.)
I loved the books and devoured the series. Years, later, on my birthday, I saw the movie and was utterly charmed by it. It managed to capture what I adored about the books.
And much like the lead character, I too, struggled with a bothersome younger brother.
Hmmm.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
As a child, it was hard to find science fiction novels with female protagonists in the 1970s. There were mystery novels, regular novels, and to a lesser degree fantasy novels that had them, but not quite that many scifi for some reason or other. I'm not saying they weren't out there - just that they weren't easy to find. My Aunt, my mother's oldest sister, who was a sixth grade librarian in Vegas, Nevada - introduced me to science fiction through Madeline L'Engle. She also sent me an interview with the writer. She did the same thing with Zelphia Keatley Snyder, a bit later. In Vegas, they apparently had a school district - with on school that only had sixth graders. She was the librarian for that school in the 1970s and early 80s.
(My Aunt died at the age of 55 from a blood clot - in 2000.)
I loved the books and devoured the series. Years, later, on my birthday, I saw the movie and was utterly charmed by it. It managed to capture what I adored about the books.
And much like the lead character, I too, struggled with a bothersome younger brother.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-09 08:20 am (UTC)Oh, so many books to choose from? I believe I'll go with one of the most thought-provoking ones, from one of my favorite authors. The subject matter of the book resonates strongly with a favorite line from a Dylan song, which goes...
To live outside the law, you must be honest.
The book would be Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed, which studies the possibility of a society based on as close to anarchy as possible-- that is, could humans ever become moral / ethical enough that government, or even traditional vertical hierarchies would simply become unnecessary, or at least bare minimal?
Impossible? Probably, but what would such a society look like if it was?
One of her best works, which is... kinda, what isn't? PBS aired an American Masters episode about her earlier this year, which both pleased and surprised me, as fantasy and SF writers still aren't always taken seriously by the literary community at large.