Not-quite-sixteen year old Vicky Austin finds that this particular summer on Seven Bay Island will be different from all the other summers she’s spent there. This summer, the Austin family’s yearly visit to Grandfather’s house on Seven Bay Island is without a definite end—because Grandfather, dying slowly from leukemia, isn’t expected to live past the end of summer. The book opens with the funeral, not her Grandfather’s, but of a family friend, Commander Rodney, and Vicky wonders if experiencing death is a part of growing up. This summer, however, Vicky also finds herself, for the first time, at the center of attention of three boys: loyal Leo (son to the recently deceased Commander), dangerous Zachary (whose cold, flippant exterior masks a deep loneliness and fear), and the enigmatic Adam (who treats Vicky alternatively as peer and as child). Vicky, a budding poet, becomes an important part of Adam’s summer project at the Marine Biology Station, where she makes new and wise friends in the dolphins Basil, Noberta, and Njord.
Called on to carry more crosses than she might be able to bear, Vicky feels both ready and overwhelmed. With the wise counsel of her Grandfather and family, however, Vicky manages to retain her lightness and joy in the world. That is, until she brushes a little too close to death, and darkness closes in around her.
Through Vicky Austin’s deft first-person narrative, Madeleine L’Engle portrays the emotionally difficult transition from childhood to adulthood delicately and sensitively. A Ring of Endless Light is a beautiful book about life and death, love and loss, about the metaphysics of time, and about knowing when to turn from darkness back into the light.
While I suspect this book might not appeal to boys quite as much as it will to girls, its timeless quality will delight both younger and older readers.
L'Engle, Madeleine. A Ring of Endless Light. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980.
Madeleine L'Engle's Website
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