Madeleine L'Engle has died at the age of 88. I know I'm very far from alone in having strong, formative memories of A Wrinkle in Time, which, among other things, made marvelous use of fiction's most hackneyed first line: "It was a dark and stormy night."

L'Engle was famous for writing kids' books -- but crucially did not see herself as a kids' writer: "In my dreams, I never have an age," she once said. "I never write for any age group in mind. When people do, they tend to be tolerant and condescending and they don't write as well as they can write."