A Wrinkle in Time Celebration

Saturday, February 11th featured a remarkable event, New York City's Symphony Space's A Wrinkle in Time 50th Anniversary Event. The place was packed with a lovely range of kids, parents, and adult admirers of the book (now out in a gorgeous 50th anniversary commemorative edition) and its author, Madeleine L'Engle. The event was part of Symphony Space's author series, the Thalia Kids' Book Club. Next up -- Carl Hiassen.

The program was a lovely mix that, I think, appealed to this wide audience range. It began with James Kennedy's video "A Wrinkle in Time in 90 Seconds."  After an introduction by one of Madeleine L'Engle's grandchildren blogger Betsy Bird moderated a wonderful conversation with Lois Lowry (wow), Katherine Paterson (wow,wow), Rebecca Stead (wow, wow, wow), and R.L. Stine (wow, wow, wow, wow). I'm afraid I didn't take notes though I did manage a handful of tweets.

Next was one of the absolute highlights of the afternoon -- Jane Curtin reading from the book. She was amazing. After her was another excellent performance by a group of high school students. Children's literature expert Leonard S. Marcus (who has an adult biography of L'Engle coming out this fall) provided closing remarks, featuring a wonderful story about one of L'Engle's performances.  Between the different presentations were lovely videos and images including the new book trailer and others of L'Engle and her book.  

It is hard to do an event about a beloved iconic author and book that speaks to a range of ages, but yesterday it happened. Symphony Space, Macmillan, Betsy Bird, Bank Street Bookstore, and everyone involved did a fantastic job. Bravo!

A variation of this post is also at educating alice.

 

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