Defining Childhood Moments

I don’t know about you, but I can think of a dozen or so defining moments of my childhood - those occasions that combined to make me who I am today. As odd as it may sound, one of those moments was the day I discovered Madeleine L’Engle and her way with words. The first book of hers I read was A Wrinkle in Time. I think it was on a summer reading list and my mother picked it up for me. While I never liked science fiction, I was enthralled by the story of Meg Murry and Calvin O’Keefe. If you’ve never read A Wrinkle in Time the story is about Meg whose father is a government scientist and winds up missing. He is working on a secret project called a tesserac, oh and that is only the beginning. There are four more books in the series A Wind in the Door, Many Waters, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and An Acceptable Time. I read the whole series in a few weeks and was then hungry for more.

From that moment, I picked up other books by L’Engle. Some of my all-time favorite books were written by this talented author. For instance, A Ring of Endless Light is, hands down, the book that I wish I could write. It has depth, and heart and soul. It talks about love and loss, life and death, family and true friendship. It’s real. A Small Rain was the first adult novel I read and the first that I passed on to all of my friends in high school. It made such an impact on all of us that one of my HS friends recently mentioned she re-read it with her book club.

To say Madeleine L’Engle and her writings formed my childhood would be an accurate sentiment. She also formed the writer I want to be. She wasn’t afraid to talk about death in writing. She touched on a lot of deep and important topics while weaving a story that captured you and characters you fell in love with.

It’s the 50th anniversary of A Wrinkle in Time and I’m taking part in a 50-blog tour to celebrate this landmark anniversary. There’s a whole Facebook group dedicated to the re-issued 50th anniversary edition. I’m supposed to come up with a fashion post that correlates with the book, but when considering the author and her works I drew a blank at how to capture what she’s done in something as every day as an outfit I don.

So instead I ask you, what was one of your defining childhood moments? Leave a comment and let me know.