Madeleine L'Engle

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Madeleine L'Engle (1918 – 2007) was an American writer of Young Adult Literature best-known for A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels.

Most of her novels belong to one of two sequences, referred to as "Kairos" and "Chronos", from the two ancient Greek words for time. "Chronos" refers to chronological or sequential time, while "Kairos" signifies a time in between, a moment of indeterminate time in which something special happens. (Although both sequences contain speculative elements, the Chronos sequence is primarily realistic, while the Kairos sequence, which includes A Wrinkle in Time, is clearly sf/fantasy.)

Kairos

• Time Quartet (concerning the Murray family)

1. 1. A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
   2. A Wind in the Door (1973)
   3. A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)
   4. Many Waters (1986)

• O'Keefe novels (concerning the children of Meg Murray)

1. 1. The Arm of the Starfish (1965)
   2. Dragons in the Waters (1976)
   3. A House Like a Lotus (1984)
   4. An Acceptable Time (1989)

Chronos

• Austin family novels

1. 1. Meet the Austins (1960)
   2. The Moon by Night (1963)
   3. The Young Unicorns (1968)
   4. A Ring of Endless Light (1980)
   5. The Anti-Muffins (1980)
   6. The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas (1984)
   7. Troubling a Star (1994)
   8. A Full House: An Austin Family Christmas (1999)

Works by Madeleine L'Engle with their own trope pages include:

• A Wrinkle in Time
• A Wind in the Door
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet
• Many Waters

Additional tropes:

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: And no boy is a clearer example than Zachary Grey.
• Buy Them Off
• Character Overlap: The Kairos and Chronos sequences are connected by several supporting characters who appear in both, as well as in some of L'Engle's other works.
• Dreaming the Truth
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: in The Love Letters