Madeleine L’Engle, American writer of young adult fiction, non-fiction and poetry was named after her great grandmother.
Madeleine L’Engle, American writer of young adult fiction, non-fiction and poetry was named after her great grandmother.
Her mother was a pianist and her father was a writer and foreign correspondent.
As a child, Madeleine was sent to boarding schools wherever the family was living, including one in Switzerland.
Her father died from lung complications when she was 17.
Madeleine graduated from Smith College in 1941 and married in 1946.
Shortly after, she had a daughter and a son and adopted a little girl whose parents died.
Living in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Goshen, Conn., Madeleine continued writing.
Her most famous novel, “A Wrinkle in Time,” was published in 1962 and later made into a movie.
The family moved back to New York so her husband could continue his acting career.
Madeleine taught at a high school, cared for her aging mother and lost her husband to cancer in 1986.
Her son died in 1999 at the age of 47.
Madeleine died Sept. 6, 2007 in Litchfield, Conn. while living in Rose Haven Nursing Facility.
In 2011, she was inducted into the New York Writers Hall of Fame.
“A Wrinkle in Time” was named the number two children’s novel by School Library Journal readers in 2012. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White was number one.
In 2013, Madeleine had a crater on Mercury named after her.
Her two granddaughters published her biography, “Becoming Madeleine,” in 2018.
Henryetta Public Library has her (YASF) books “Many Waters,” “A Swiftly Tilting Planet,” “Young Unicorns” and “A Wrinkle in Time” as well as her (YAMF) books “The Arm of the Starfish” and “Dragons in The Waters.”
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