“The well-intentioned mothers who don't want their children polluted by fairy tales would not only deny them their childhood, with its high creativity, but they would have them conform to the secular world, with its dirty devices. The world of fairy tale, fantasy, myth, is inimical to the secular world, and in total opposition to it, for it is interested not in limited laboratory proofs but in truth.”

American writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry

Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She is best known for her 1962 children's book A Wrinkle in Time, which won the Newbery Medal. Her work spans several forms, but she is most closely associated with writing for younger readers. She later received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1998, an honor recognizing her lasting contribution to young adult literature.