ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the first and most well-known of L’Engle’s Time series, A Wrinkle in Time (1962), and the third of the Austin family series, The Young Unicorns (1968). These novels contain similar plot elements and thus make an ideal pair to begin this analysis. Wrinkle is the fantastic novel in the pair, and events from Wrinkle are mirrored in the more realistic The Young Unicorns, illustrating movement along the fantasy/reality continuum. The chapter explores these two novels in light of the ecopsychological ideas of differentiation and integration, determining the importance of recognizing individuality in order to effectively form relationships between dissimilar beings. This chapter also demonstrates, generally, the different kinds of relationships that constitute the ecopsychological human-nonhuman kinship continuum and their psychological impact. These patterns of kinship emerge in more detail in the novels examined in later chapters.
