A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle

A Wind in the Door is a young adult science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It is a companion book to A Wrinkle in Time, and part of the Time Quartet (and by extension the Time Quintet).

It is November. When Meg comes home from school, Charles Wallace tells her he saw dragons in the twin’s vegetable garden. That night Meg, Calvin and C.W. go to the vegetable garden to meet the Teacher (Blajeny) who explains that what they are seeing isn’t a dragon at all, but a cherubim named Proginoskes. It turns out that C.W. is ill and that Blajeny and Proginoskes are there to make him well – and by making him well, they will keep the balance of the universe in check and save it from the evil Echthros. Meg, Calvin and Mr. Jenkins (grade school principal) must travel inside C.W. to have this battle and save Charles’ life as well as the balance of the universe.

Overall, I give this one an okay. I love the characters and how relatable Meg is. I love the fantastic imagination of creatures. I love that there could be problems on the scale of galaxies similar to the problems on the very micro scale. However, the story didn't work for me. It mostly worked...I was mostly there until the last third or so. I dunno. I really wanted to love this book because A Wrinkle In Time is such a delight.

I noticed in my re-read of A Wrinkle in Time just how fast everything happened. This is the case again in A Wind in the Door, although it didn't stand out to me as much, perhaps because I have a history with the characters from Wrinkle. This time, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace are not just meeting fantastical beings and moving through space, but they are exploring size and relativity through (real) mitochondria and (fictional) farandolae. (Note: I had to google whether farandolae are real, and in doing so, I came across farandole, which is a kind of French dance in which the dancers form a chain. The farandolae in the book dance in a circle together, and this can't be a coincidence.) I love the way Madeleine L'Engle explores huge ideas through interpersonal relationships: the idea that a human being is like a galaxy to a farandola, but that what happens to that farandola affects its human host, and so by implication, what happens to one human matters to the entire galaxy.