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Vicky Austin
Victoria "Vicky" Austin is one of Madeleine L'Engle's frequently used fictional characters, appearing in eight books and referred to in at least one more. She is the protagonist of the Austin family series of books being the first person narrator of ''Meet the Austins'', ''The Moon by Night'', ''A Ring of Endless Light'', ''Troubling a Star'', and (as a younger child) the picture book ''The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas''. A developing poet and writer, Vicky observes the everyday events in her large family, dates several boys, communicates with dolphins, faces the occasional mortal danger, and reflects on important issues about life and death, faith and family as she gradually comes of age. Character traits Vicky is the second eldest of four children. With a future astrophysicist (John) for an older brother and a younger sister (Suzy) who has always wanted to be a doctor, Vicky sometimes feels at odds with others in her family with her less purposeful, more philosophical appr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meet The Austins
''Meet the Austins'' is the title of a 1960 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the first of her books about the Austin family. It introduces the characters Vicky Austin and her three siblings, and Maggy Hamilton, an orphan. Plot Vicky Austin's noisy, loving, mostly-happy family is disrupted when the family's honorary uncle dies in a plane crash. His co-pilot was also killed, leaving behind a ten-year-old daughter, Maggy, who has no one to care for her. The Austins take Maggy in, and she proves to be a spoiled, troubled only child who had very little family life. Maggy encourages Vicky's sister Suzy to misbehave, which makes everyone's life more difficult. ''Meet the Austins'' is largely episodic; each chapter covers a specific incident such as Vicky's bicycle accident or a family vacation. Throughout the book, Vicky comments on the changes her family experiences during this time, and the reader sees her growing self-awareness. Although Vicky will later appear in three novels that ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Point Of View (literature)
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot: the series of events. Narration is a required element of all written stories (novels, short stories, poems, memoirs, etc.), presenting the story in its entirety. It is optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action. The narrative mode, which is sometimes also used as synonym for narrative technique, encompasses the set of choices through which the creator of the story develops their narrator and narration: * ''Narrative point of view, perspective,'' or ''voice'': the choice of grammatical person used by the narrator to establish whether ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington III is a major character in three young adult novels by Madeleine L'Engle. A marine biology student, he is the protagonist of '' The Arm of the Starfish'' (1965), and a reluctant romantic love interest for Vicky Austin in '' A Ring of Endless Light'' (1980), a romantic relationship that continues in '' Troubling a Star'' (1994). He is one of three characters to have major appearances in both L'Engle's O'Keefe family series of books and her Austin family series. Major traits Adam is highly intelligent, with a strong aptitude for science, especially marine biology, a field in which Adam's uncle and namesake made a name for himself a generation earlier. Although he describes himself as "not a churchgoer", he sang in a church choir as a child and retains a strong moral sense along with a questioning, philosophical nature. Initially somewhat naive, Adam unwisely trusts a beautiful young woman in ''The Arm of the Starfish'', which results in the death of a friend. Because ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Ring Of Endless Light
''A Ring of Endless Light'' is a 1980 novel by Madeleine L'Engle. The book tells of teenager Vicky Austin and her struggle to understand life and significance in the universe as she deals with her dying grandfather, while at the same time finding true romantic love. The title originates from a phrase in the seventeenth-century Welsh poet Henry Vaughan's poem "The World". Plot summary Fifteen-year-old Vicky Austin and her family are spending the summer on Seven Bay Island with her maternal grandfather, who is dying of leukemia. At the beginning of the story, Vicky attends a funeral for Commander Rodney, a family friend. Also present are the commander's wife, his sons Leo and Jacky who own a launch boat business, and Adam Eddington, an intern at the Island's research base and friend of Vicky's brother, John. After the funeral Vicky encounters Zachary Gray, her boyfriend from the previous summer whom her family does not particularly like. She soon learns that Zachary indirectly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Young Unicorns
''The Young Unicorns'' (1968), ) is the title of a young adult suspense novel by American writer Madeleine L'Engle. It is the third novel about the Austin family, taking place between the events of '' The Moon by Night'' (1963) and '' A Ring of Endless Light'' (1980). Unlike those two novels and '' Meet the Austins'' (1960), it does not center on Vicky Austin specifically, but on a family friend, Josiah "Dave" Davidson. Plot summary As the story opens, the Austin family has settled in a New York City apartment after the events of ''The Moon by Night'', and made some friends; blind young pianist Emily Gregory and Josiah "Dave" Davidson, who helps Emily get around. Emily is studying under the tutelage of the passionate, leonine Emmanuel Theotocopulous, better known as Mr. Theo. Canon Tallis, newly arrived at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine after the events of '' The Arm of the Starfish'', meets the Austin children and their friends just as they encounter an anachronistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an international border with the Mexico, Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With almost 40million residents across an area of , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, largest state by population and List of U.S. states and territories by area, third-largest by area. Prior to European colonization of the Americas, European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization by the Spanish Empire. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following Mexican War of Independence, its successful war for independence, but Mexican Cession, was ceded to the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zachary Gray
Madeleine L'Engle, an American novelist, diarist and poet, produced over twenty novels, beginning with '' The Small Rain'' (1945), and continuing into the 1990s with ''A Live Coal in the Sea'' (1996). Many of her fictional characters appeared in more than one novel, sometimes in more than one series of novels. Other major characters are the protagonists of a single title. This article provides information about L'Engle's most notable characters. In a family tree chart first published inside the front cover of ''Many Waters'' (1986, ), L'Engle divided her major characters into categories she called "chronos" and "kairos", two Greek terms for different concepts of time. The stories of the Austin family take place in a chronos environment, which L'Engle defined as "ordinary, wrist-watch, alarm-clock time.". These are presented in a primarily realistic framework, though occasionally with elements that might be regarded as science fiction. Kairos, the framework in which the stories of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camping
Camping is a form of outdoor recreation or outdoor education involving overnight stays with a basic temporary shelter such as a tent. Camping can also include a recreational vehicle, sheltered cabins, a permanent tent, a shelter such as a Bivy bag, bivy or Tarpaulin, tarp, or no shelter at all. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors, in pursuit of activities providing them enjoyment or in a form of educational experience. Spending the night away from home distinguishes camping from Day trip, day-tripping, picnicking, and other outdoor activities. Camping as a recreational activity became popular among elites in the early 20th century. With time, it grew in popularity among other socioeconomic classes. Modern campers frequent publicly owned natural resources such as national and state parks, wilderness areas, and commercial campgrounds. In a few countries, including Sweden and Scotland, public camping is legal on privately held land as well. Camping i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connecticut
Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capital is Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bridgeport. Connecticut lies between the major hubs of New York City and Boston along the Northeast megalopolis, Northeast Corridor, where the New York metropolitan area, New York-Newark Combined Statistical Area, which includes four of Connecticut's seven largest cities, extends into the southwestern part of the state. Connecticut is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, third-smallest state by area after Rhode Island and Delaware, and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 29th most populous with more than 3.6 million residents as of 2024, ranking it fourth among the List of states and territories of the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Moon By Night
''The Moon by Night'' () is the title of a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Published in 1963, it is the second novel about Vicky Austin and her family, taking place between the events of ''Meet the Austins'' (1960) and ''The Young Unicorns'' (1968), and more or less concurrently with the O'Keefe family novel '' The Arm of the Starfish''. The book marks the first appearance of the character Zachary Gray, who dates first Vicky and then (in later books) Polly O'Keefe. Although Vicky will later appear in three novels that have fantasy and/or science fiction themes, there are no such elements in ''The Moon By Night''. Plot summary In ''The Moon by Night'' (), Vicky and her family are on a cross-country camping trip, meant to be a transition between their life in rural Thornhill, Connecticut and a very different one in New York City, where Vicky's father, Dr. Wallace Austin, will be doing research. In another big change in Vicky's life, Maggy Hamilton, an orphan who has been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, also known as wrappers, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic. Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets, yellow-backs, yellowbacks and dime novels. Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In the United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes. Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to the lower cost of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
