Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Meg Murry’s younger brother, Charles Wallace, is being bullied at school and growing alarmingly ill when he reports dragons in the family’s vegetable garden. The visitor is Proginoskes, a many-eyed, many-winged cherub who joins Meg and her friend Calvin in a journey into Charles Wallace’s cells. Saving him requires confronting the Echthroi, destructive beings whose threat extends across the universe.
Reader notes
The second Time Quintet novel is a middle-grade science fantasy that combines cellular biology with angels and religious ideas about love and creation. The adventure is strange and earnest, and its abstract concepts ask more concentration than a straightforward rescue story.
How it reads
Writing style
Descriptive · Direct · Lyrical
Tone
Dark · Earnest · Hopeful · Philosophical
Structure
Linear
Driven by
Character · Ideas · Plot
Point of view
Third person, limited
Setting
Domestic · Invented world
Reading complexity
Writing
2 / 5
Ideas
3 / 5
Structure
3 / 5
Background knowledge
1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
Writing
How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas
How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure
How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge
Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity
Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Somewhat. The prose is direct and the story moves in a linear order, but the abstract concepts demand concentration. Meg’s attempt to save Charles Wallace combines cellular biology, angels and ideas about love and creation.
Who is it best suited to?
It suits middle-grade readers interested in science fantasy that gives ideas and characters room alongside the rescue plot. The combination of cellular biology, a many-eyed cherub and a universe-wide threat makes the adventure strange, earnest and philosophical.
How central are the religious ideas?
Angels and religious ideas about love and creation are central to the science fantasy. Proginoskes is a cherub who helps Meg and Calvin try to save Charles Wallace, and the story uses allegory to explore morality and redemption.
Is it dark or frightening?
Yes, it has a dark tone and an emotionally intense rescue story: Charles Wallace is bullied and becomes alarmingly ill, while destructive beings threaten the universe. Violence and abuse are mild, and the tone also remains hopeful.
How long is it?
About 256 pages in the Square Fish 2007 edition.
Which edition is shown here?
Square Fish · 2007 · Paperback. ISBN 9780312368548.
What is the order of books in Time Quintet?
1. A Wrinkle in Time; 2. A Wind in the Door; 3. A Swiftly Tilting Planet; 4. Many Waters; 5. An acceptable time.
How long does it take to read A Wind in the Door?
About 5 hours at 50 pages an hour, based on the 256-page Square Fish edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L’Engle was an American writer whose career ranged across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. After publishing her first novels in the 1940s, she endured repeated rejection and even considered abandoning writing, an experience that underscores the persistence behind her later success. Her best-known book, the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time, established a characteristic method: bringing science fiction and fantasy into the intimate world of family loyalties, vulnerable young people, and difficult moral choices. The related Murry novels widen that approach through cosmic conflict, illness, time travel, biblical history, and the threat of nuclear war, while keeping ideas tied to the fate of particular characters. L’Engle’s prose could be direct and descriptive or more lyrical and atmospheric, depending on the scale of the story. Her nonfiction, including Walking on Water, makes explicit another enduring concern: the relationship between faith, artistic practice, close attention, and honest creation.
