A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

I think the first two books of the Wrinkle in Time series are more science fiction, but this book definitely feels much more like fantasy. There isn't much science in this one--there's a unicorn, and magical time traveling, and "kytheing," or Meg and Charles Wallace's ESP connection between their minds, all of which feels more like fantasy to me. I remember really liking this book when I was younger, and I still enjoyed it today. This book starts out with the Murrys finding out that the world is about to end because of a nuclear war which is about to start, and Charles Wallace using an ancient rune to go back in time (with the unicorn) and try to change things so that this doesn't happen. I loved the different storylines that Charles Wallace drops into--first Madoc, in ancient times, then the Puritan times, then Civil War, and then just fifty years prior, and I loved how they each resolved using the rune and for the better. I love the Murrys and their close family, even with their different personalities, and I especially love how Mr. and Mrs. Murry are so open to the possibilities of otherworldly things happening, despite their oh-so-science-y minds and careers. They are a stark contrast to the ever-rational Sandy and Dennys, and are also a contrast to the standard stereotype of "scientists" today.

However, it is a little bit stretching beyond my belief nowadays to believe that a) all of those people would remember the legend of their Welsh ancestors so vividly that they would all be named Branwen and Brandon and Zylle and Zillah and that b) they would all be so interconnected like that. However, that's not a huge complaint for me, because of how much disbelief you have to suspend when reading a book like this anyway (I mean, Charles Wallace flies on a unicorn to a magical unicorn hatching ground at one point). I still loved it, although I wonder how much of me loving it is just my nostalgia and memory of it. (But it is a book written for middle-grade or YA, definitely not for someone my age, so I don't know that it matters too much what I think about it now in that respect.)