I too am in shock almost... I feel somehow responsible, no that is too strong, rather "negligent" as if guilty that over the years as my life grew busier and she grew older, I hadn't called her for so long, well EVER... Can you feel extremely close to a person whom you have never met? And yet, how can I not? A Wrinkle in Time was actually written expressly for me! I had lost my father the previous year and I found it strangely comforting to think of him as not really dead, but rather on an important mission battling with good & evil in a far-away galaxy. Not only that, but Meg was me, as in "I" not really M.E. - Madeleine L’Engle as the author has claimed in speeches. I was awkward, wore braces, and felt too often that either everything in the world was wrong or I was wrong in this world. Enter Charles Wallace and all the Mrs. W's, and Ms. L'Engle's entire galaxy of good, evil, purpose, mission, love, life over death and so many rich themes that reverberated from this novel and through my 4th-grade brain. I felt I had to hide the book from my family because it was more like a personal diary of my secret life. I could not put it down; I read it in one sitting. When Meg says "I love you, Charles Wallace" actual tears flowed down my cheeks in a cathartic release - it was so simple, yet so difficult a concept. The mixture of hate and love, fighting and weakness. Book smart vs. intuitiveness.
In time, I went on to read most all of her other works and loved them as well, but never forgot my first love, A Wrinkle in Time. I made sure that both my own sons read it when they were in 4th grade - actually they are smarter and better readers so they probably read it even earlier, but then also studied it in school - I was so pleased it had held up to the test of time - pun intended, I suppose!
God be with you Ms. L'Engle. The world is a better place for your having been in it... à dieu.