Common Sense Note
Though the plotting is slow in the book's first half, the tension picks up considerably after that. The biblical characters begin to seem real, and their dilemmas are involving. Based on the story of Noah and the ark; descriptions of the fantastic creatures and the desert setting are evocative.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cindy Kane
The main characters, Sandy and Dennys, spend a good part of this book just recovering from sunburn, being tended by members of Noah's family. The biblical characters--both the tiny, long-lived humans and the angels--are considerably more interesting than the twins. Even the animal characters, like the miniature mammoth, Higgaion, have more personality.
When Sandy and Dennys do speak, they tend to state the perfectly obvious. One twelve-year-old reader was frustrated by the lack of connection to the main characters, but another preteen enjoyed the biblical references and liked the idea that "normal kids were fooling around and could suddenly appear someplace totally different."
Eventually, readers are pulled into the struggle between angels and fallen angels, the ageless battle between good and evil that is at the heart of all the Chronos Quartet stories.
Since the novel was written out of chronological order in the Time Quartet, there isn't much doubt about whether Sandy and Dennys will return to their own time; the twins are alive and well years later in the third book of the series. Rather, L'Engle raises the interesting questions of what part the twins will play in the battle, and what will happen to Yalith, whom they both love. This is not conventional storytelling, but it has its own rewards.
L'Engle's Newbery winner, and the first book in the Time Quartet, is A Wrinkle in Time. For another story with a biblical setting, try Elizabeth George Speare's Newbery award-winning The Bronze Bow.
From the Book:
Sandy had been convinced that he and Dennys had blown themselves somewhere far from home. ... If this Noah was [from] the story of Noah and the flood, they were still on their own planet. They had blown themselves in time, rather than in space. And to get home from time might be far more difficult.
Plot Summary:
Fifteen-year-old twins Sandy and Dennys are the practical members of the Murry family. Unlike their siblings, Meg and Charles, they have never experienced a journey through time or space. But when, overcome with winter doldrums, they type "TAKE ME SOMEPLACE WARM" on their physicist father's computer, they are suddenly whisked away to biblical times.
Here, the fallen angels vie for control of Earth with the seraphim, and a diminutive patriarch named Noah has received a mysterious message from El to begin building a huge ship.
Sandy and Dennys must find a way to return to their own time before the flood begins, but they are concerned for the fate of Noah's beautiful granddaughter, Yalith, who is not mentioned in the biblical account.
Forced to think independently for the first time, the twins affect history in ways they couldn't have imagined, learning that "some things have to be believed to be seen."
Related Books:
Books With Similar Themes:
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
A Wrinkle in Time
The Bronze Bow
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