In September 1962-fifty years ago this month-my third-grade class filed into the school library in search of adventure. I found mine almost immediately-a book displayed on the "new arrivals" shelf. It had a blue cover with three children silhouetted against radiating concentric circles.

I snatched the book off the shelf and printed my name in the first space on the card in the pocket. I was the first student at John C. Fremont Elementary School to check out "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle. It was L'Engle's first published novel, and it would go on to win many awards, including the prestigious Newbery Medal. (L'Engle, who died in 2007, also received the National Humanities Medal in 2004.)

At the tender age of nine, I was already a science-fiction addict, having been hooked years earlier on black-and-white TV space operas like Tom Corbett-Space Cadet. I was hungry for science fiction to read, yet our school library had little to offer. So the discovery of "A Wrinkle in Time" had a huge impact on me.