Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83374 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-01
• Released on: 2007-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.com
We've all done it. In the frigid depths of winter we've wished we could be magically transported to someplace warm and sunny. But most people don't have genius parents who just happen to be working on a scientific experiment with time travel at the moment of our wish. Sandy and Dennys Murry, the "normal" boys in a family of geniuses, suddenly find themselves trudging through a blazing-hot desert, seeking a far-off oasis for shade. Their desperate wandering brings them face-to-face with history--biblical history. Soon they're feeling right at home with Noah and his family. Even so, the urgent question is, how will Sandy and Dennys get back to their own place and time before the floods--the many waters--come? As they begin to cross the invisible border into adulthood, the twins must confront their ability to resist temptation and embrace integrity.

In Many Waters, Madeleine L'Engle continues the Murry family saga, which includes A Wrinkle in Time; A Wind in the Door; and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which won the American Book Award. L'Engle's mystical mix of science fiction and fantasy, time and space travel, history, morals, religion, and culture once again urges her many adoring readers to stretch their minds and hearts to understand why the world is the way it is. (Ages 9 and older) --Emilie Coulter

From School Library Journal
Grade 6 Up Fans of the Murry family will welcome this tangental return to the "Time Trilogy" books (Farrar) as L'Engle spins another uniquely metaphysical fantasy, this time using the twins, Sandy and Dennys, at age 15, as her protagonists. On a cold day, Dennys absent-mindedly requests his father's computer to take them "someplace warm." Suddenly, it's the twins' turn to tessor, and they end up in a desert so hot that they nearly die of sun poisoning. As they meet the small people who inhabit it, including Lemach, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and finally, Noah, they realize that they are in the world as it existed before the Great Flood. What follows is an entertaining description of life in this ancient time and place, when angels and fallen angels walked the earth, and small mammoths could call unicorns into existence. The story is more tension than plot: the tension of the Nephilim, fallen angels whose power on earth seems somehow threatened by the mysterious arrival of the twins; the sexual tension that both Sandy and Dennys feel as they are drawn to Yalith, Noah's youngest daughter; and the tension that readers feel, wondering how those protagonists not mentioned in Genesis (the twins and Yalith) are going to survive the Flood, which is plainly imminent throughout the book. This suspense lacks the urgency found in the other books of the trilogy, however, mainly because the characters are subservient to atmosphere, incident, and ideas. It is as hard for readers to tell the twins apart as it is for Noah. One is curious as to how they will escape, but hardly worried. The strength of this book lies in its haunting descriptions of a time resonant of our own. Its weakness is a pat ending and characters so slightly drawn that we hardly care. Christine Behrman, New York Public Library
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Sandy and Dennys, twins and middle children in the Newbery-winning A Wrinkle in Time, are transported to the time just before the Flood. . .This will be enjoyed for its suspense and humor as well as its other levels of meaning." --Pointer, Kirkus Reviews

"L'Engle blends speculative fiction with biblical theology to create another provocative spellbinding tale." --Philadelphia Inquirer

Customer Reviews

For Readers of the Lost Ark Story
In the previous three volumes of Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet tales of the Murry family, the focus has been on the siblings Meg and Charles Wallace. The twins in the middle, Sandy and Dennys, are kind of off to the side. That all changes in Many Waters, when they are front-and-center.

Though written fourth, in the internal story chronology, this fits in between A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Fifteen year olds Sandy and Dennys accidentally trigger one of their father's inventions and wind up in a desert. They find people here who seem to top off around four feet tall; the twins, already at six feet, appear to be giants. An effort to get them to shelter does not work out as well as expected, and both wind up almost killed by sunburn and sunstroke.

Sandy winds up in the tent home of Lamech, an elderly man. Dennys, even more severely ill, is taken care by the family of Lamech's son, Noah. Yes, that Noah: the two have been transported to early Biblical times, before the Flood. This is a land of strange creatures, including mammoths, manticores and griffins, and humans are not the only races. There are also the seraphim, essentially angels, and the nephilim, who are seraphim who have tied themselves to the Earth and mate with the local women.

Sandy and Dennys get entangled in the intrigues of the various people in Lamech and Noah's oasis. Both the patriarchs hear from El, the god (or God) who warns of an upcoming disaster. The twins know what's coming and know who will survive: Noah, his three sons and their wives. Noah's daughter, Yalith, who the brothers have both fallen for, is not slated to be saved. And, of course, there is no record of the two of them surviving the Flood either; are they doomed, or will they be able to get home?

The fact that they are around in A Swiftly Tilting Planet seems to bode well for Sandy and Dennys, but there is still suspense, particularly regarding Yalith and the rather nasty nephilim. While Wrinkle in Time may get the most acknowledgement, I actually found this to be my favorite book of the four I've read. While the three previous books are all fine, they tend to focus more on mind-bending concepts; Many Waters has a more straightforward story with deeper characterization. If you have enjoyed the previous books, you will find this one to be distinctly different but still a pleasure to read.

Many Waters
This is one of the 5 books in the set and it is fantastic!!
I highly recommend the entire set to readers of all ages!!!

Not what I expected from a talented author
I was excited to find this book, after enjoying the L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series as a child. However, this book does not live up the expectations I had. The characters are flat and boring. I kept having to page back in the book to even keep track of which twin was Sandy and which was Dennys. L'Engle starts to frame conflict and interest between the Nephilim and Seraphim but then never follows through with any meaningful development of those two groups. There is a strange love triangle between Sandy, Dennys, and Yalith. I refer to it as strange because while Yalith appears to be a teenager, she is actually over 100 years old. Like the rest of the plot, this love interest is not particularly well developed. And parents be aware: there are some overt sexual references in this book, not at all in character with other L'Engle books I have read. The author tries to build suspense about how Yalith will be saved from the flood but even that falls flat. Overall, a disappointing book, especially coming from such a gifted writer.