Each of Madeleine L'Engle's four Chronos Quartet novels has a distinct identity. This one is as much a sprawling family saga as it is a fantasy, and it has the least to do with the Murry family. Though Charles Wallace has some run-ins with the evil Echthroi, and his interactions with the unicorn are vivid and magical, the fantasy scenes are mainly frames for the story of the Maddox family curse.

The saga is well crafted, with some scenes, such as the rescue of a woman in Puritan times from being hanged for witchcraft, that are truly exciting. The plot does demand close attention, though. For instance, every generation Charles Wallace visits has a blue-eyed descendant of the Native American woman Zyll, and one twelve-year-old reader couldn't keep all the variations on her name (Zylle, Zillah, Zillie) straight.

L'Engle offers plenty of clues about the interlocking generations that are fun to piece together. In fact, some characters arrive very late at conclusions the reader will have reached early on. ("Duh!" said the twelve-year-old at one point, heaping scorn on Mrs. Murry's two PhDs.) Patient readers will be rewarded with a well-sustained story line and a spine-tingling ending.

Readers who haven't already experienced A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle's Newbery winner and the first book in the series, will certainly want to find it. The third book in the series is Many Waters.

Other time-travel novels about changing the past are Here and Then, by George Ella Lyon, and Susan Cooper's King of Shadows.

From the Book:

Gaudior's hoof pawed the lush green of the young grass. "If you are to accomplish what you have been asked to accomplish, you will have to travel in and out."

"In and out of time?"

"Time, yes. And people. ... You have been called to find a Might-Have-Been, and in order to do this, you will be sent Within."