Listening for Madeleine

Starred review from August 27, 2012
In this insightful biography of beloved children's book author Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newberry Medal), Marcus (Minders of Make-Believe) draws upon dozens of interviews with those who knew L'Engle personally and professionally, as well as with representatives of "the thousands of students, teachers, librarians, aspiring writers, neighbors and others who crossed her path." The result is both impressionistic and satisfyingly complex. One topic of concern is the spiritual aspect of L'Engle's work, which often got her books banned. We also get a window into her working habits, which included banging away on her grand piano. One of her editors at FSG recalls that "if you didn't pick your words right, you might end up with a whole new revision on your desk twenty-two minutes later." Throughout, L'Engle appears both remarkably generous and intensely private. For those who read L'Engle during childhood, this book will serve as a valuable companion to the stories they cherish. Photos. Agent: George Nicholson, Sterling Lord Literistic.

September 15, 2012
A multifaceted portrait of the complicated writer who won the 1963 Newbery Medal for A Wrinkle in Time. Timed as part of the publisher's 50th-anniversary celebration of the beloved classic (an observance that also includes a graphic-novel treatment by Hope Larson and the inevitable commemorative reissue), this collection brings more than 50 voices to bear on the life and career of Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007). Children's-literature scholar Marcus (Show Me a Story: Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World's Most Celebrated Illustrators, 2012, etc.) approached the project with a curator's eye, seeking out interview subjects who knew L'Engle in an impressive range of roles. He has arranged their remarks thoughtfully, in sections that cover L'Engle as a child and youth, writer, matriarch, mentor, friend and icon. Readers most familiar with her work for children will discover L'Engle the Anglican mystic, and vice versa. Marcus is an unobtrusive interrogator; in many cases, he elides his questions altogether, allowing his interlocutors to speak fluidly and directly. Though their relationships with L'Engle were varied, common threads emerge. An actor by training, L'Engle consciously constructed her own public persona, transforming her biography and history into "mythic material," as with the ever-expanding number of rejections she received for A Wrinkle in Time. Generous with the public ("Fame fit her like a glove," remarks Stephen Roxburgh, one of her editors), her personal life was not so easy--only one of her two surviving children chose to participate. Many of the interviewees directly respond to Cynthia Zarin's controversial 2004 profile in the New Yorker (including Zarin), though few try to refute it. Other contributors include Judy Blume, Jane Yolen, T.A. Barron, Thomas Cahill and Wendy Lamb. Though readers may not understand L'Engle the human being any better than they did before, they will certainly come away with a greater appreciation for the way she grappled with her life and wrestled it into narrative.

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October 1, 2012

Writer, matriarch, mentor, friend, and icon, L'Engle was a complex person, ably presented here through the voices of family, friends, and acquaintances. A children's literature star, as author of the Newbery-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels as well as the Austin family series, L'Engle was also a committed Christian, a spiritual guide to many, and librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City. Marcus has wisely chosen not to try to simplify his portrait of this complicated woman, about whom many have very strong, sometimes contradictory, memories and feelings. "L'Engle tended carefully to departmentalize her vast and many-faceted universe," he explains. After an introductory summary, he presents more than 50 deftly edited interviews, organized by the role she played. The result is more like Hokusai's collection of views of Mt. Fuji, always with the subject in focus but also revealing a great deal of the surroundings. It is this rich addition that makes this biography a standout. Readers who may not have thought they needed or wanted to know quite so much about L'Engle's life will be charmed.-Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2012
That indefatigable interlocutor Marcus, who has seemingly interviewed everyone who is anyone in the world of children's literature, now directs his attention to the late Madeleine L'Engle and his questions to a host of those who knew her. The book is divided into six sections: Madeleine in the Making, Writer, Matriarch, Mentor, Friend, and Icon. Best known for her Newbery Medalwinning and groundbreaking A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle was also a memoirist and a writer of adult nonfiction, much of it spiritual in nature. This aspect of her distinguished work might have made another section of the book but, as it is, remains a leitmotif throughout. If the work is a focus, what of the writer herself? The interviews are chockablock with adjectives and phrases that create this portrait in many voices. She appears to have been stately, formidable, scary, regal, noble, a grande dame, a classic presence, glamorous but also occasionally otherworldly, and, by many accounts, generous, charming, and gracious, especially to her friends and many mentees. That she was clearly a complex and fascinating person makes this a fascinating book and an excellent introduction to both L'Engle and her work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)