Book review -- A Wrinkle in Time

She had lost the protection of Calvin's hand. Charles was nowhere, either to save or to turn to. She was alone in a fragment of nothingness. No light, no sound, no feeling. Where was her body? She tried to move in her panic, but there was nothing to move. Just as light and sound had vanished, she was gone, too. The corporeal Meg simply was not.

Then she felt her limbs again. Her legs and arms were tingling faintly, as though they had been asleep. She blinked her eyes rapidly, but though she herself was somehow back, nothing else was. It was not as simple as darkness, or absence of light. Darkness has a tangible quality; it can be moved through and felt; in darkness you can bark your shins; the world of things still exists around you. She was lost in a horrifying void.

-- A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

I have a strange love-hate relationship with children's books. Part of me rolls my eyes at the suggestion of fantasy and the world of make-believe; another part of me is in awe of the one that puts into the mind vivid images with mere words.

There are times when I flip through my old Enid Blyton books, and I find myself wrinkling my nose at its tackiness; you mean I read through all of these fantastical stories in wonderment? I mean, come on, The Magic Faraway Tree? Reeeeaaally?

But what captures my fascination is the realisation that I could never write with such magic; the cynic in me would never allow me to do so, even if I did know how to. Who writes these things? Who takes something as intangible as darkness, and make it sound like something you can hold, touch, breathe? Who is the mind behind these words?

And yet, even as I read in amazement, I realise that these are not the questions a child would ask. I don't know what a child would make of this -- I will never know -- because I never read this story as a child; somewhere inside of me, a deep chasm gapes -- the knowledge that, among the things that money cannot buy, what I can never get back is the simple marvel and innocence of my "child's-eye view." And perhaps what is even more poignant is knowing that when I did possess it, I never once realised its pricelessness and transience.