An Acceptable Time [Hardcover]

Madeleine L'Engle (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 11 and up

A flash of lightning, quivering ground, and, instead of her grandparents' farm, Polly sees mist and jagged mountains -- and coming toward her, a group of young men carrying spears.

Why has a time gate opened and dropped Polly into a world that existed 3,000 years ago? Will she be able to get back to the present before the time gate closes -- and leaves her to face a group of people who believe in human sacrifice?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For this time-slip novel, L'Engle again reaches into her bag of weird and wonderful knowledge, blending snippets of tantalizing information from a variety of disciplines--history, natural history, physics and Christian metaphysics, to name a few--into a rich and heady brew. Red-haired Polly O'Keefe (last seen in A House Like a Lotus ) arrives at her grandparents' farm in Connecticut for some private tutoring. There, in a landscape familiar to L'Engle fans (who will be pleased to know that the Nobel Prize-winning Mrs. Murry still cooks over a Bunsen burner), Polly slips back 3000 years into a different time "spiral." She meets Anaral, a Native American girl; Karralys, a druid banished from Britain for his progressive thinking; and Tav, a handsome warrior who accompanied the druid to their new land. Polly travels back and forth between the two worlds, and eventually her purpose becomes clear: with the aid of her new friends she forges peace between two clashing tribes, and helps Zachary Gray (also from A House Like a Lotus ), a self-centered but very ill young man. The story is laced together with L'Engle's now-familiar theme of the transcendent importance of love. This fine fantasy, firmly rooted in reality, is the kind of thoughtful story at which L'Engle excels. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"When Polly O'Keefe visits her grandparents in Connecticut, she finds herself caught up in the lives of three mysterious strangers [who lived] 3,000 years ago [and] travels back in time to play a crucial role in an ancient confrontation...L'Engle has again achieved the award-winning style of A Wrinkle in Time. . .Highly recommended." --VOYA

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 11 and up
  
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); 1 edition (October 1, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374300275
• ISBN-13: 978-0374300272
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,274,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Madeleine L'Engle, the popular author of many books for children and adults, has interspersed her writing and teaching career with raising three children, maintaining an apartment in New York and a farmhouse of charming confusion which is called "Crosswicks."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Fifth is Vintage L'Engle, May 19, 2003

By 

Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: An Acceptable Time (Time Quartet, Bk. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

The thing that first pricked my interest to read this book was a negative review about it written, I think, in a library journal. We all know that writers in library journals have axes to grind since a good review guarantees that most libraries will stock the book. Look at the [books] in libraries these days (and pity kids looking for something to read) and you'll see my point. The fact that some knucklehead didn't like this book wouldn't normally have swayed me, but like many detractors she went too far, and described it in order to slam it. Just her description of the story, which she found "far-fetched," convinced me of two things: she had no imagination, and this sounded like a great book. No, I'm not being fair to the reviewer, who perhaps simply had no taste for L'Engle's brand of fantasy, but man, did she make me want to read this book.

Like many L'Engle books this one starts slow. Not put-the-book down slow but unpretentious, unassuming, making no attempt to hide the narration. No plunging into the plot, nothing blowing up, not at all Hollywood. Almost too obvious to keep reading. Almost. Almost too simple and kid-level. Almost. But a couple pages in and I couldn't put it down. An Acceptable Time ranks as one of my all-time great reading experiences, hot on the heels of L'Engle's amazing, awe-inspiring Many Waters. The sad thing is that Many Waters features as the fourth book of the Time Quartet, but no one knows that An Acceptable Time is the fifth. Take hope oh forlorn reader--you who have finished Many Waters and long for more L'Engle--another reading experience of great power and wonder yet awaits you.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!, November 29, 1999

By 

"raven-spirit" - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Acceptable Time (Time Quartet, Bk. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

This was the first book by Madeleine L'Engle that I ever read and I fell in love with her writing and her characters. I was ecstatic to find out that she had written more books about the same characters and I now own nearly every work of fiction she's ever written.

I love this book so much because I discovered it at that time of life when you bumble through adolescence and you aren't really sure who you are and where you're going yet. You also aren't exactly sure anymore where you stand with people. Reading this story of Polly helped me to realise the same thing she does through the course of the novel: Friendship works both ways. Friends will always try their best to help each other and support each other. Friends do not sacrifice one another for personal gain. Friends love each other because of who they are. True friendship is forever and can cross time and space.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful fantasy book by the one and only!, March 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: An Acceptable Time (Time Quartet, Bk. 5) (Mass Market Paperback)

Madeleine Langle is Classic, and so are her books. I am a fan of hers, my first being A Wrinkle in Time. This book was strikingly wonderful with interesting facts of science, and history. Not only does this open up your imagination, but you learn from it too. This story has a lot to do with time lapses and going back 5,000 years ago to a tribe a peaceful living people called The People of The Wind. On an accident of walking around, Polly gets mixed in an issue concerning two times, sacrifice, love, and the change of history, possibly. It's a mind boggler and a wonderful book to read. I really recommend people to give it a try. Try everything once within reason!