We all have childhood books that are literally the cornerstone of our entire being. We all know that these books exist, especially if you were a complete dork who holed themselves in their room to read books a bookworm. Like, take out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and I don’t even know who I am.

Remove Chronicles of Narnia and I’m pretty sure if I stared in a mirror, there would be no reflection.

They are literally so important to my life that in the biography of my life, it would say something like (to paraphrase): “And then she read books and her mind was blown.” Another one of those classics? Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. The heroine of this story was just so typically me: frizzy, out-of-control hair; a temper with a short fuse; stuck in the awkward phase of not being a woman, but also not a little girl anymore.

I knew Meg Murry because I truly felt that I was Meg Murry.

I’m sure that so many pre-pubescent chicks such as myself have discovered the same feeling in A Wrinkle in Time: the heroine in this book was finally not the sleek-haired, hip protagonists that The Baby-Sitters Club featured (although, do not get it twisted, I love The Baby-Sitters Club dearly.) No, Meg Murry was a complete and total basket case, wild curls and all, and she wasn’t even good at anything in particular. She didn’t have super powers, she wasn’t a genius, and she certainly wasn’t popular. But she was earnest, determined, and felt decidedly like a real person, one that you could actually meet in homeroom or pick up and call on the phone (I was a child of the 90s and we still called our friends on the phone. Through a landline. Weird, I know).

And thus, with A Wrinkle in Time, I become a Madeleine L’Engle fanatic.

Before Oprah waved her shiny billionaire wand over this book title, I was diving deeper into the Murrys’ lives and into L’Engle’s fantastic writing. And so many of her other books were super important to me (Many Waters is so good, I feel like it doesn’t get enough love, go read it immediately). So, naturally, when I heard about Sarah Arthur’s A Light So Lovely, which a fantastic Madeleine L'Engle biography that chronicles how her faith inspired one of the greatest writers of our modern time, I was totally in for reading it (or listening to it, as the audiobook is bomb). Arthur really dives into the part of L’Engle’s life that I always knew was a huge factor in her writing, but didn’t know a whole lot about: her journey of faith and how it impacted her each step in her life. Some of things were, frankly, pretty dang interesting.

Here are some Madeleine L'Engle facts I learned from her biography, A Light So Lovely:

Her childhood was pretty lonely

Her parents, while loving, had her later in life and, according to L’Engle, “the pattern of their lives was already well established and a child was not part of that pattern.” Because of that, L’Engle had to utilize her imagination to entertain herself while being left to her devices by herself in an empty home while her parents when out late into the evenings. As an only children, I totally feel you, Madeleine.

Her first career was in theater

And she wrote while on tour with a theater group. And she married an actor!

She has written over 60 titles

Uh, I had no idea her library was so large. That means that I need to get to reading, because I apparently have only read literally a handful of her books. If you want to start listening to A Light So Lovely and hear more interesting Madeleine L’Engle facts, just click play:

Want to WIN a copy? Our friends at Libro.FM are giving away an audiobook copy of A Light So Lovely. You can enter for a chance to win here.

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