A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle

When I was a kid, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time blew my mind. I’m sure that’s why I remember it as one of my favorite childhood books. Reading it gave me the first inkling of the immenseness of the universe and that the concepts of space and time were much more complicated than I had realized. I think it was also the book that started my life-long love of science fiction. Before that, I had no idea that I loved having my mind blown! It’s surprising then that I never read the sequels to A Wrinkle in Time. I don’t think I was aware of them until years later and then I probably thought of them as children’s books and passed them by. That was a big mistake which I’ve now corrected.

The first sequel, published eleven years later (in 1973) is A Wind in the Door. Meg is now in high school and Mr.... Read More

Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken

Black Hearts in Battersea is the second book in Joan Aiken's beloved Wolves saga, beginning with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and continuing in Nightbirds in Nantucket. Each book can be read separately and out of order (i.e., each is a separate story, not one big story broken into several parts), linked by re-appearing characters, plot lines and locations. Each is set in a cleverly devised "parallel universe" where historical figures and events are changed from what we would recognize in our own history books.

In this case, the action takes place in London, where Britain is ruled by good King James III and plagued by marauding wolves immigrating from Russia, with other little snippets of an alternative history slipped in to give the... Read More