New Book Alert: Sapphire and Planet Zero by Christina Blake; Amazing Hero’s Journey Voyages To Unique Planet

New Book Alert: Sapphire and Planet Zero by Christina Blake; Amazing Hero’s Journey Voyages To Unique Planet




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: Sapphire and Planet Zero could be best described as MYTHS IN SPACE!!!!

It is about a young woman who goes on a Hero's Journey by discovering her destiny through a magical creature, is received a task, given many trials, and faces a great enemy to ascend into a different higher role. This journey is more of a science fiction based one as the young protagonist visits another planet.

Sapphire is a typical teen with a typical teen life with friends, school, and ultra talented parents who don't spend much time with her. Unfortunately, some things are happening which makes her life….not so typical. A bottle of perfume from her grandmother's shop appears to cast a spell on her. People are mysteriously dying with no probable cause, including one of her classmates, and her newfound black cat, Toby begins talking.

Well it turns out that Toby is from Planet Zero and says that the planet has been conquered by Thaddeus, a powerful wizard. Oh yes and Planet Zero is inhabited by a species called the squila who each have a twin on Earth and Thaddeus has been killing squilla on Zero. So when the squila dies so does the twin. Oh and did I mention that Sapphire is half-squila on her mother's side and that she is the one destined to bring down Thaddeus?

So Sapphire has no choice but to gather Toby and her friend, Luke and take a trip to Zero to take on Thaddeus. They have to free the Good Ones, squilan leaders, from Thaddeus. Fortunately, they left clues for any attempted rescue and that's what Sapphire, Toby, and Luke must do follow those clues to find the Good Ones.

Sapphire and Planet Zero is in the grand tradition of the works of Madeleine L'Engle and Ursula K. LeGuin, a blend of fantasy and science fiction. Author, Christina Blake handles both aspects very well.

Planet Zero is a very evocative fanciful setting and the squila are a fascinating new species. They are human in appearance but are more attractive. There are also some other strange properties that make them stand out such as crystals running through their veins and violet eyes. (So did Elizabeth Taylor have squilan ancestry?) They also stop aging at 19 and appear forever youthful. When Sapphire's grandmother arrived on Earth however, she hid her squilan appearance and took an aging potion so her body could appear like that of an Earth woman. She also put a spell on her daughter, Sapphire's mother, to make her the most beautiful woman on the planet cancelling her anti-aging abilities as well.

The most interesting aspects about squilan life is that they are born with some unique power or ability. Sapphire's grandmother has magic powers and even calls herself a witch. While on Planet Zero, they encounter Nathan, a friendly young man with telepathy and telekinesis (“anything with tele-,”he says.) Who helps them. Unfortunately, Thaddeus's corrupt influence causes the squilans to use their powers against each other such as the moment when Sapphire and Co. witness a club brawl consisting of people fighting with powers that produce tornadoes, water, and flight. (Sort of like what would happen if the X-Men got really drunk during a night out.)

A fantasy or science fiction novel is only as good as its protagonist and Blake gives us a good one. One nice aspect is that Sapphire is clearly described as a person of color. It is refreshing to get some diversity in fantasy and science fiction, particularly in the former which unfortunately is still lagging behind other genres in that respect.

While the narrative uses the “Chosen One” motif, Blake doesn't go overboard in making Sapphire too perfect or too much like a Mary Sue. When she first hears about her half-squila ancestry, she is naturally horrified and angry at her grandmother for hiding it all these years. She can be stubborn and argumentative, often bickering and challenging Toby's advice especially when it doesn't make sense to her. She goes on this adventure like a normal teen would, stubborn and sullen but willing to learn.
Sapphire has just as many virtues as flaws. She and her friends are very smart and use their intelligence to solve the clues. She also expresses tremendous strength in character in her fights with Thaddeus. Another chapter that shows her strength is in her encounters with the Milo, a team of siblings who use their various powers to test Sapphire and her friends so they can be ready to face Thaddeus. Though the tests are physically and mentally challenging, Sapphire is able to use those lessons to her advantage in her final battle against Thaddeus and his Troop.


In some ways, Sapphire can be contrasted with Rey in the new Star Wars movies. However, where the Star Wars movies fails is in making Rey too superhuman. There is no meaningful transition in which she discovers the Force and uses it in small ways making rookie mistakes before she masters it. In The Force Awakens, she already uses the Jedi Mind Trick before even really knowing what the Force is. By The Last Jedi, she is using it in ways no one had done previously like making rocks stop in mid-air and contacting Kylo Ren telepathically.

By contrast, Sapphire is only learning about her connections to Zero. While she uses new-found powers in an extraordinary way by the end, it is a logical process. Her first time on Zero is filled with embarrassing faux pas and even her encounters with the Milo take a toll on her. Her mastery of her squilan heritage is clearly earned as we saw it evolve from her beginnings as a brash uncertain confused girl to a strong confident leader by the finish. Sapphire's journey also leaves us ready for another adventure with her (which a sequel is advertised at the end of the book. It hopefully should be another great read.)

Sapphire and Planet Zero has the interplanetary travel of science fiction but doesn't get too technical. It has the magic of fantasy but doesn't get too fanciful. Instead it creates a 21st century Hero Journey which is the perfect marriage of both genres.

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next Series Vol.III) by Jasper Fforde; Thursday Takes A Literary Journey Further Into The Fascinating Book World

Weekly Reader Thursday Next Edition: The Well of Lost Plots (The Thursday Next Series Vol. III) by Jasper Fforde; Thursday Takes A Literary Journey Further Into the Fascinating Book World




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: When last we left Thursday Next in Lost in a Good Book, her husband Landen had been eradicated, while she is pregnant with his child, had been screwed over by the Goliath Corporation, and had several enemies on her tail including Aornis Hades, the bitchy magical sister of Acheron Hades, her arch enemy. What's a girl to do? Why enter the Great Library of Book World and go into hiding inside the pages of an unpublished murder mystery novel of course!


The Well of Lost Plot's main storyline is somewhat convoluted. It continues plot threads from Lost in a Good Book such as Thursday's psychic encounters with Aornis and the machinations of Yorrik Kaine, an escapee from Book World who now plays the role of corrupt politician in England. There are also murder attempts on various Jurisfiction agents including Thursday and her handler, Miss Havisham. Some sinister characters such as the Minotaur from Greek mythology and Big Martin from the horror story “Better Wait Until Big Martin Comes,” are lurking about causing trouble. Thursday has to face her second trial for Fiction Infraction inside the pages of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and where the heck is Godot and why are we waiting for him?

The biggest draw in this book is not the plot but the journey into Book World itself as Thursday learns what it's like to be a literary character. (Well a literary character in her world or more of a literary character than she already is. Never mind, just go with it!) Thursday is inside a hoary clichéd murder mystery called Caversham Heights replacing the character of Mary Jones, sidekick to Jack Spratt, detective extraordinaire. In the Book World, literary characters can take sanctioned breaks either inside other books or out in the real world, called the Outland, as long as someone else replaces them. When they get a replacement, the plot can continue as normal and the Reader is none the wiser that any change has been made. (If they leave their book without permission, that results in Page Running and is therefore illegal.)

Getting published is the most important goal for any literary character. Caversham Heights is waiting inside the Well of Lost Plots, a depository for unpublished books waiting to fly into Reader's hands. Besides the books themselves, the Well is filled with construction workers who build plots, characters, and settings and shop that sell words and plot devices. (Thursday receives A Shot in the Dark plot device which comes in handy later.) There is also the dreaded Text Sea which is just letters made from destroyed master copies of unpublished works which the gang from Caversham Heights are in fear of getting thrown in.

Besides the unique world, Fforde gives us the limitations of the lives of literary characters and how they get bored doing the same things over and over. They are mystified by Thursday’s arrival and keep asking questions about the Outland like why Outlanders drive on parkways and park on driveways. Thursday struggles through life as a literary character by doing without certain things that aren't important to the text, such as having breakfast and being surrounded by the bizarre denizens like faceless extras with no back story inside the books.

There are characters that go through great lengths to change their storylines such as in a creepy chapter in which the extras of Shadow the Sheepdog are willing to stage Thursday's murder to get an emotional high.


As always Fforde handles his and other author's characters well. In this volume, he takes great fun in making characters act differently than they do in their original works. Lucy Deane, the goody-two-shoes from Mill on the Floss becomes a gun-wielding psychopath to destroy her rival, Floss’ heroine, Maggie Tulliver. Miss Havisham and Thursday host a support group for Wuthering Heights characters who have grudges against Heathcliff (which is everyone except Catherine Earnshaw), while Heathcliff behaves like an aging womanizing rock star. Uriah Heep, David Copperfield's villain is originally Uriah Hope, a genial, sweet guy until a misspelling goes awry and turns him into the sniveling sycophant Dickens's readers know and despise.


Of course Fforde's original characters are on hand as well. Thursday shows the same feistiness and determination as she always does, particularly in her mental battles with Aornis Hades as she struggles to hold onto her memories of the eradicated Landen and fight her enemy.


The characters from Caversham Heights are an intriguing bunch as they go through the motions of a plot they know isn't working. When Thursday makes suggestions to shake things up such as Jack patch things up with his wife (instead of doing the whole 'tortured single detective’ thing), they are confused but they are willing to do so to save their home.

The most interesting original characters are a pair of Generics (background characters that have no real purpose or story), named ibb and obb. It's entertaining as Thursday teaches them about humanity using traits like sarcasm or subtext. The Generics ultimately evolve into fleshed out characters, the curvaceous beauty, Lola and the pretentious brainy, Randolph.

Interesting details pile up about the Book World. Characters talk on footnoterphones which are one-on-one conversations found in, where else, the footnotes. They can travel from book to book either by reading the pages or slipping in through the bar codes. Terms like TravelBook (information guide for Jurisfiction agents) and Echolocator (an artisan who destroys echoed words) are thrown around but thankfully are given epitaphs before each chapter to explain them.

A new interactive device called Ultra Word is created which will make reading more interesting by inserting music, scents, and visuals along with the words.

There is even an awards ceremony called the Bookies in which various literary characters receive awards like “Most Troubled Male Lead” and “Dopiest Lead Shakespeare Character.” In true action-adventure format, it is at the Bookies, in front of the entire Book World, where Thursday and her friends confront their enemies and solve the mystery with every literary character watching.
The Well of Lost Plots is a brilliant piece of metafictional writing. It makes every book lover long to schedule a holiday inside its pages.

New Book Alert; The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins; Charming Magical Southern Tale About Friendship in a Small Town

New Book Alert: The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins; Charming Magical Southern Tale About Friendship in a Small Town


By Julie Sara Porter


Bookworm Reviews



Spoilers: There are bookworms and there's Sarah Dove. She is the type of reader in which books talk to her, literally in her case.



In Karen Hawkins’s charming and magical novel, The Book Charmer, Sarah first hears the voices of books when she is a little girl. She hears the voice of her ancestor's diary begging for her to read it. After much deliberation and argument (Sarah wanted to read about dragons), she agrees and becomes fascinated with her family history.


The Doves are a unique family in Dove Pond, South Carolina. They have always produced seven daughters and each one is bestowed with some unique ability. The seventh (in this case, Sarah) is the most powerful and is often the head of the family and her community. Sarah's ability to hear books calling to her is put to good use in her role as town librarian. The books long to be matched to the right person and tell her who should read them. Sarah is able to match a Reader with the right book to solve their problems or answer their questions.


However, a once thriving town, Dove Pond is now dying. Businesses and residents are leaving. The mayor, an honorary position, is tremendously lazy and is inept in handling the town's funds. Even many of Sarah's sisters have left leaving only her and Ava, a horticulturist who hears plants the way her sister hears books. If Sarah doesn't act fast, there won't be much of a Dove Pond left.


Enter Grace Wheeler. Grace arrives in Dove Pond with her troubled orphan niece, Daisy, and her dementia-ridden foster mother, Mama G., to accept the job as Dove Pond’s Town Clerk. Sarah's books tell her that the new arrival will be the one to save Dove Pond, so she wants to get Grace to join the committee of the upcoming Apple Festival as a springboard to save the town. At first, Grace is reluctant but when the two eat coffee cake and carpool together, a friendship begins to develop.


The plot of The Book Charmer is similar to many of the other books of this type. Big City person visits a small town (usually in the South) of good-hearted eccentric locals. At first, the City Slicker has their own personal problems and doesn't want to have anything to do with them but still they begin to like it there, and become an active member of the community helping to save it from dying. Expect some cute little magical touches and a friendship and/or romance with a local.
It's not a bad plot, and if done right the results can be quite pleasant. Luckily Hawkins does it right. Grace and Sarah make for an interesting duo that play the familiar plot rather well.

One way is that they compliment each other so well. Sarah is a romantic almost otherworldly figure. She takes much of the strangeness of her family and the town in stride. She treats her beloved books like wise old friends and she is always on the lookout for signs and omens like flowers inexplicably changing color to let her know she is on the right track.
Sarah is an engaging people person who knows a great deal about the locals’ personalities, interests, and of course reading habits. She takes her role as a community lead seriously because she loves Dove Pond and doesn't want to see it die.

Grace is the more cynical realist. A former foster child, she developed a tough exterior that she uses in her relationships with others. While she could have been written as a heartless yuppie or an urban snob, Hawkins instead writes her as someone who is overwhelmed. She is trying to care for her niece and mother so when the mayor forces her to chair the Apple Festival, it's no surprise that at first she instantly delegates it to someone else and automatically resigns.
However, once she is tricked into rejoining the Festival committee, Grace shows a strong business strategy and work ethic. When she realizes the town's finances are in bad shape, she is able to plan a business outreach to send businesses to Dove Pond for the festival. To reach out to local business owners, she needs to get to know them and that's where Sarah comes in.

Grace and Sarah make for a great team that work well together and are able to use their talents to achieve their goals. Sarah wouldn't have the business acumen to draw in various companies without Grace and likewise Grace wouldn't understand how the town works without Sarah. They are practically two halves of the same woman representing the realist and romantic sides.

There are also other interesting characters that go through great change throughout the book. Daisy starts out as a rebellious sullen girl, but begins to enjoy being a part of the town when she is given extra duties such as reading to children. While Mama G’s faculties are diminishing, she is still on hand to provide a sympathetic ear and some words of encouragement. There is Trav Parker, an Afghanistan war vet and childhood friend of Sarah's who begins to develop a fondness for Grace and Daisy. His relationship with Grace and her family allows him to move beyond his PTSD and self-imposed isolation. There are also other memories of the community that are likable and charming in their own ways.

That's what this book has plenty of. Charm. The Book Charmer is a sweet book that casts a gentle spell on the Reader. While it does mention serious topics like dementia, death, mental illness and others, the book does not overwhelm the Reader with them. Instead it suggests that even when things are at their darkest, there is always a solution out of it. There is some light to be offered whether it is through the kind words of a friend, a gentle walk through town, a slice of coffee cake, the smell of a new flower, or the pages of a beloved book.

New Book Alert: Broken Sea by Nigel Peace; 1960’s Romance Leads To Journeys of Self-Discovery For Protagonists

New Book Alert: Broken Sea by Nigel Peace; 1960’s Romance Leads To Journeys of Self-Discovery For Protagonists

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The 1960’s were a time when young people all over the world woke up and strove to change the world around them. Of course many know of the American hippies and activists who protested the Vietnam War and campaigned for causes such as civil rights and women and LGBT rights. But they weren't the only ones. The United Kingdom had the mods, rockers, and hippies, young people who rebelled against conformity  and embraced the counterculture of the era. France had student riots in May of 1968. Even Communist-era Eastern Europe saw its share of protesters particularly in then-Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring.

The Prague Spring was a period of liberal reform in Czechoslovakia, under strict Communist rule. The Spring lasted from January 5-August 21, 1968. The reforms included loosening of restrictions towards media, speech, and travel and a decentralization of the administrative government. The Soviet government was not happy with the new reforms and in August of 1968 sent Warsaw Pact tanks and troops into end the Spring. The Spring officially ended on August 21, 1968 but many artistic and cultural figures emerged from that time including Milan Kundera’s novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It also produced long-term after effects as many of the people involved in the Velvet Uprising of 1989 that ended Communism forever in Czechoslovakia were also actively involved in the Prague Spring.

Nigel Peace captures that heavy time of student revolt, experimentation, and discovering one's identity in his novel, Broken Sea. Broken Sea involves a love story between a young Englishman and a Czech woman and sees them try to change their worlds and themselves.

Roy comes from a middle class family. He is studying in Manchester to be an engineer, but his heart isn't really into his studies. While vacationing in Wales, Roy encounters Eva, a student from Czechoslovakia who is studying English. The two fall in love and begin an affair in which they are challenged by their changing countries, prejudice from friends and family, and their own perspectives and expectations.

Broken Sea gives us two protagonists that contrast greatly in their backgrounds and outlooks, and both take their own journeys towards self-discovery.

For Eva, her journey is more external. She is involved with the political climate in her country even when she isn't physically there. She is captivated by the independence that she sees among her fellow students and begins to embrace a freer lifestyle including a passionate romance with Roy. However, she still can't get the events from her home country out of her mind.

Every time, Eva returns to her country, it is with a sense of trepidation, fear, and caution over a world that changes so quickly that it's hard to keep up. She sees a friend gain acceptance as a journalist during the Spring and then find his newfound reputation ruined when the tanks go marching in.

In one of several particularly gripping moments, a fellow émigré hears that Eva is returning to Czechoslovakia and asks her to locate her brother. Eva is shocked to learn that the brother was killed in public during a revolt.

The chapters with her and friends and family dealing with the Communist-governed Czechoslovakia are gripping. Tanks roll in. Leaders’ regulations become stricter requiring citizens to follow Communist rule or else. People who were once good friends become spies so it becomes more difficult to express oneself or to trust others.

Eva has a difficult time reconciling the political situation with her independence that she was able to use in England. She feels caught between the world that she once knew and the world that Roy offers and finds it hard to reconcile them.

While Eva's journey deals more with the political hemisphere, Roy's is more internal because it deals with him finding his own place in the world separate from the expectations from his class and family. He studies engineering because his family expects him to, but he is more drawn to philosophical more esoteric paths to knowledge.

Roy gets involved in counter culture ideals like vegetarianism and free love. He is filled with questions about his existence, so he becomes heavily involved in Spiritualism including visiting a creepily accurate medium. He works through his confused feelings with music. (A song for the book is available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5pByvDwxO8)

Like many young people going off to college and university, Roy is trying to discover himself and in a time like the 1960’s, he experiments. He also finds a creative outlet in his relationship with Eva that allows him to express himself fully.

The romance between Eva and Roy has some sweet moments in which they defend one another in front of critical friends and family members. Even when they are apart, they share an almost psychic sense towards each other. Their romance is almost a release from the tension that they felt when they were surrounded by the political and personal tension.

Most of all Roy and Eva have to navigate through a world of intolerance. Where friends make unkind comments. Where governments can change quickly leaving cruel laws and a battered populace. Where even the slightest cultural difference can lead to a shift in feelings and a rift between lovers. Where sometimes the only thing you can do to fight intolerance is to discover who you really are and what the world around you is really like.

New Book Alert: The Last Collection: A Novel of Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel by Jeanne Mackin; Fun, Juicy, Stylish Novel Explores The Rivalry Between Two Fashion Icons

New Book Alert: The Last Collection: A Novel of Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel by Jeanne Mackin; Fun, Juicy, Stylish Novel Explores The Rivalry Between Two Fashion Icons




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: The fashion world in the 1930’s was largely ruled by two women: Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel. The two were different in style, politics, private lives, and temperament. So naturally the two hated one another and fought both verbally and physically. However, Schiaparelli and Chanel were two stylish, grandiose, larger-than-life figures who dominated everyone they came near. When they were together, it was a guarantee that sparks would fly. Jeanne Mackin explores the rivalry between the two fashion mavens in her novel The Last Collection, which is a fun novel that is drenched in juicy gossip, catty bitchiness, and elegant style.

In some ways, The Last Collection reminds me of Feud: Bette and Joan, the miniseries which explored the rivalry between Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) and Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) and how the two divas argued on the set of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and off the set. In both, the rivalry between two colorful figures are explored as we learn they are more alike than they realize. What was true for Crawford and Davis is also true of Schiaparelli and Chanel at least through Mackin's writing.

Schiaparelli and Chanel are explored as a study in contrasts in the novel. Schiaparelli, called Schiap by her friends, is a warm, charming, eccentric figure. Chanel is more regal, polished, and standoffish. Schiaparelli favors a more whimsical fashion style using bold colors, embellishments such as animal and musical notes on her clothing, and hats shaped like shoes. Chanel’s look is more formal and sedate with dark colored early-era power suits and elegant gowns. Schiaparelli had one bad marriage and dotes on her sometimes exasperated daughter, Gogo. Chanel has no husband or child but plenty of lovers. Schiaparelli is a liberal socialist who loses clients because she refuses to serve people with Nazi ties. Chanel is more conservative and doesn't mind cozying up to German officials sometimes horizontally.

Despite their apparent differences, the two designers are also similar in many respects. They are both flashy characters who walk into a room as though they own everything and everybody inside. They are both strong-willed women of immense creative talent and business sense. They also share the aesthetic ideal that fashion is more than just pretty clothes and accessories. They see fashion as being indicative of someone's personal style that tells the world who that person is. They are also hot-tempered cutthroats who will do just about anything to get the better of each other.


With their extreme egos, overbearing flashiness, and penchant for drama, the two fashion designers go through extreme lengths in their rivalry. Schiaparelli takes great delight in stealing a high priced client from Chanel. Chanel retaliates by greeting Schiaparelli at a formal event with an embrace. Oh yeah and Schiaparelli is in front of some candles and Chanel can't resist leaning her rival ever so slightly closer to them. Well you can guess what happens next. (Reportedly, this incident was true to life.)

They also take verbal swipes at each other particularly after Chanel starts seeing a man with Nazi ties and Schiaparelli accuses her of being a collaborator. When the Designer Duo are together, one has the urge to call a lion tamer or a boxing match referee to force the two back into their corners until the next round.


Chanel and Schiaparelli are two bombastic larger-than-life personalities that dominate the novel so much that they overpower the other characters. To Mackin's credit, she wrote some interesting characters that contrast with them. Lily Sutter, the narrator, is a mousy recent widow visiting her wayward brother, Charlie, in Paris and gets swept up into the duo's fashion world by working for Schiaparelli as a window display designer, companion for Gogo, and a spy between the two fashion houses. In the process, Lily befriends both designers finding tenderness and vulnerabilities behind their facades.


Lily and her friends are well-rounded characters. Charlie is particularly charming as is his mistress, the elegant and married Ania. Lily also has some sweet moments with Otto, a German musician-turned-driver who is the farthest thing from a Nazi. In working closely with Schiaparelli and Chanel and becoming involved with Charlie's love life as well as her own, Lily learns to let go of her grief towards her husband's death and move on. In another novel, these characters would stand out and be the most memorable aspects. However, Chanel and Schiaparelli leave such a bold presence that everything else without them seems like filler. Heck, Willy Wonka would have a hard time standing out among these two.

The Last Collection is a fun stylish tour de force inside the world of fashion in pre-WWII France. Like an elegant gown, it stands out and just asks to be admired.

Classics Corner: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle; Classic Newbery Winner Science Fiction Fantasy About Conformity and Individuality

Classics Corner: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle; Classic Newbery Winner Science Fiction Fantasy About Conformity and Individuality




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews


Spoilers: The best YA books are the ones that realize that their Readers are young, but intelligent. They don't talk down to them. They aren't afraid to discuss topics like death, desertion, separation, even higher concepts about faith and individuality. They do all that and still provide their Readers with an engaging read that captivates their imagination.

Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is that type of book.

A great book has to have a great protagonist. Meg Murray is a great protagonist. She is not a model of perfection. She is insecure, impatient, unsure of herself, and often confused about the world around her. She is smart but doesn't do well in school because she follows the “shortcuts” her genius father encouraged her to take in Math. She deeply loves her family and even communicates with her selectively mute brilliant brother, Charles Wallace but is concerned about the whereabouts of her father who has been missing since Charles was a baby. It's not easy being Meg but that's what makes her so understandable.


One night (“a dark and stormy night,” yes, L'Engle bravely used that as her opening line.), Meg and her family encounter a strange visitor, Mrs. Whatsit who tells them that there is such a thing as “a tesseract.” A tesseract is a wrinkle in time, similar to a wormhole, in which someone can travel vast distances very quickly. It also happens to be what Meg's parents were studying and maybe where her father disappeared into.

Before too long Meg, Charles Wallace, their new friend Calvin O'Keefe, Mrs. Whatsit, and her companions Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which travel through the tesseract to another dimension.

A Wrinkle in Time is filled with imaginative situations and characters. The three Mrses. are a fascinating trio, and certainly the most memorable characters of the bunch. Mrs. Whatsit appears as a cloaked character and of the enigmatic three is the most human in behavior and appearance. Mrs. Who constantly speaks in quotations particularly from literature and philosophers because she can't use human terms for what she means. Mrs. Which is a being composed of light whose speeches are written in a stilted manner like “Qqquiettt chillldd.”

The three Mrs. are the kinds of characters that are so intriguing that they steal every moment they are in. Fortunately, they don't get too overdone. L'Engle knew when to use them such as tessering the children, giving them explanations, and bestowing them gifts. She also knew when they should back off. After all, such powerful seemingly omnipotent beings could make the quest too easy or make Meg nothing but a mere observer in her story. But Meg isn't. She, Calvin, and Charles Wallace are the real heroes of the story. It is their journey to go on, their lesson to learn, and L'Engle (and the Mrses.) let them, especially Meg, learn it.


As with many quests, each step on their journey is designed to teach the children something and not always are the lessons happy ones. When they encounter a dark cloud like spirit hovering over called The Black Thing, the kids learns that there is evil and darkness around or rather beings that do horrible things for selfish and cruel reasons and that there are people that want to stop that evil. (Their father is an example of a hero wanting to stop The Black Thing.)

When they encounter such characters as the Happy Medium and Aunt Beast, they learn not to take everything at face value. They also learn about appreciation and unconditional love, things that they will need in their final test on Camazotz, a very strange sinister planet.

To retrieve Meg and Charles Wallace's father, the children visit Camazotz, where the houses all look alike, residents move in the same exact formation at the same exact time, and everything is rigidly controlled by rules, regulations, and paperwork. Seeing that A Wrinkle in Time was first published in 1962, this was probably L'Engle's commentary about 1950’s-’60’s suburbia and conformity. If so it was a dire situation that she saw.

The people of Camazotz do the bidding of IT, a creature who runs the world with precision and sameness. He believes that individuality must be removed and that everyone must be alike. (“Like and equal are not the same thing,” Meg declares.)

What Meg realizes as she encounters IT is that she needs to use her compassion, love, acceptance and even her flaws like impatience, anger, awkwardness-all the things that make her an individual to fight IT and save her brother, friends, and father.
A Wrinkle in Time is a Newbery Medal Winner and deservedly so. It is an engaging fantasy adventure with brilliant characters and a lesson that Readers of all ages need to learn.

Classics Corner: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg; Disturbing But Memorable Novel About A Woman Struggling With Schizophrenia

Classics Corner: I Never Promised You A Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg; Disturbing But Memorable Novel About A Woman Struggling With Schizophrenia




By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews




Spoilers: No this book has nothing to do with the classic country song of the same name by Lynn Anderson except sharing a title.

Instead I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, shows what happens when a highly creative person has schizophrenia. The hallucinatory world that they create in their mind could be a peaceful retreat one minute and a walking nightmare of frightening creatures and self-destruction, the next.

16-year-old Deborah Blau is being taken to a psychiatric hospital. She has hallucinations of a fantasy world of her creation called Yr and has lately been cutting herself in punishment because the Yrian creatures order her to. At first her parents are in denial. They are a typical suburban family. They worked hard to get to where they were and to avoid prejudice from their Antisemitic neighbors. This shouldn't happen to them. But it does and when Deborah keeps harming herself, they realize that they have no choice but to send her to the hospital.

The book is fascinating as we get into possibilities of the cause of Deborah's schizophrenia and why it began so early. After all schizophrenia doesn't usually begin until one reaches their late teens or early twenties. There are many probable causes such as an operation to remove a tumor from Deborah's brain, the family going through a period of poverty and having to live with a strict Old World grandfather, and a stint in summer camp where she was bullied by anti-Semitic campers and teachers. There wasn't one specific reason, but several.

Of course psychological studies marched past the book's 1962 published date and it's late 1940’s setting. We now realize that exterior situations may not be the only causes for psychiatric disorders. Sometimes it's neurological or genetic reasons that are the cause.

However, it is human nature to look for reasons and explanations behind the unexplained. Why would a bright talented young woman suddenly withdraw into herself and succumb to hallucinations? There must be a reason and Deborah, her family, and psychiatrist Dr. Fried are determined to find it.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden also shows how the mind of a schizophrenic works by using their delusions to protect oneself and create barriers and prohibitions from the outside world. It also shows the difference between creative imagination and psychological hallucination and delusion. Nowhere is this most prominent than in Deborah's brain creating Yr.

When she's a child, Yr is a place that she retreats to in times of comfort. She believes that the characters protect and love her. She created little interesting details like a language called Yrian and the world's separate time frame. She has a strong creative artistic mind that could write fantasy stories if properly used. However, when Yr takes on a sinister tone is when the depths of Deborah's mental illness reveals her private Paradise is instead a private Hell.

As she grows older, Deborah's delusions become more terrifying as Yrian characters threaten her with punishments as she cuts and burns herself to acquiesce to their rages. This shows that while there is nothing wrong with creating an imaginary world, what made Deborah's world a product of insanity is that they wanted to hurt her or rather her own fears and insecurities manifested themselves as beings to hurt her.

Fried helps her recognize the monsters found in Yr were created by her own psyche. For example, she reveals that one of the Yrian characters is actually a stand-in for Deborah's strict grandfather.

Since Deborah's fantasy life is such a large part of her mental illness, Fried has to help Deborah see through her delusions by using reality. Once, Deborah reveals that the Yrians are punishing her because she almost threw her baby sister out of a window. Dr. Fried uses simple logic to help her realize that since Deborah was five years old at the time, she could not have lifted the baby and opened the large heavy window by herself.

Above all, Deborah receives the courage to silence her hallucinations and to accept a world beyond them. In the psychiatric hospital, Deborah makes friends with other patients who also have mental illnesses such as one who believes that she is married to the abdicated King Edward. Deborah and the other patients call themselves “nuts” and “sickos” and mock the orderlies and patients who aren't as mentally ill as they are or worse than them.

However, they want lives outside the hospital. The patients look on with envy at Doris, a patient who left the hospital and started a new life. When Doris returns after a relapse, they react with fear that if that happened to her, it could happen to anyone. However, Deborah wants to recover to succeed when Doris did not.

When Deborah strives to recover, she has to take the good and bad of the real world around her. When she argues about a friend's punishment, Fried quotes the book's title and says that she never promised life would be perfect or fair. There will always be hardships, violence, and hatred. People will mess up and sometimes the wrong people will get in trouble.

The difference is that Deborah can choose to live in that world instead of one ruled by her mental illness and the fear it represents.