Friday, August 22, 2008

Madeleine L'Engle's Austin Books Reissued

The wonderful Austin family stories by Madeleine L'Engle are being reissued in what look like lovely (and affordable) paperback editions by Square Fish, an imprint of Macmillan. You can see the cover of the first one at the publisher's website here. They're calling the books the "Austin Family Chronicles" and assigning each a volume number. Volume 1, Meet the Austins, has an availability date of September 2 on Amazon; Moon by Night (volume 2) and The Young Unicorns (volume 3) can both be pre-ordered. I'm assuming they will bring out A Ring of Endless Light as volume 4. Perhaps they'll even extend it on to a volume 5 with Troubling a Star.

These lovely books are some of the best stories L'Engle penned for young people and would make great gifts for any voracious 12 and up readers you may know. The first book actually can work for even younger readers (and I suspect would be a terrific read-aloud for even younger listeners). There are also three shorter Austin family stories that have appeared as very long picture books. Two are set at Christmas time. A Full House just came out in that format several years ago. The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas is one of our favorite family Christmas books. The Anti-Muffins is another great one, a very long short story published in a picture book format. I wonder if that one's still in print? I used to get together with a group of women friends in my college dorm, now oh so many years ago, and we briefly called ourselves the Anti-Muffins, inspired by this story!

4 comments:

Jill said...

I just read this one to my 7- and 9-year-old children, and it was a big hit. L'Engle is one of my favorite writers, and the Austin series is my favorite, so I was glad they enjoyed it as much as I did when I first read it! I may wait till they're a bit older before reading them the next one, though - I think they'll get more from it in a year or two.

Beth said...

Yes, I think Meet the Austins works well for younger children...it just feels like a "family story" (right down to the episodic way it's written!). But the others, beginning with Moon, definitely move into adolescent territory, hence my recommendation of 12 and up. :-) I'm so glad your children enjoyed the first one. It's wonderful to pass on enthusiasm for our favorite authors!

Erin said...

Those sound really nice! I've never read any of the Austin books before A Ring of Endless Light; I really must! And I still have some blog posts I've been meaning to write. Where has the summer gone??

Beth said...

I know what you mean! We started school this morning!!! Ack! Where did the summer go indeed?

I feel really badly not to have kept up with the L'Engle blog. It was one of those wonderful ideas that I suspected I didn't have time to do properly but wished I did. I'm game to keep it up and see if we get inspired to jump back in. Have you read Swiftly Tilting Planet yet?

And I've love to read some of the Austin books together. The first one is really charming -- sweet, funny and poignant. I've been considering re-reading it to evaluate its potential as a possible read-aloud with S. this coming winter. Let me know if you want to dive into that one next and I'll be glad to!