An Acceptable Time
 An Acceptable Time first edition | |
| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Charles Mikolaycak (hardback) |
| Language | English |
| Series | Time Quintet, Polly O'Keefe |
| Genre | Young adult science fiction/fantasy |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus Giroux |
Publication date | October 1, 1989 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Hardback |
| Pages | 343 |
| ISBN | 0374300275 |
| Preceded by | A House Like a Lotus |
| Followed by | none |
An Acceptable Time is a 1989 young adult science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Sometimes marketed as part of the author's Time Quintet (the other four volumes of which are called the Time Quartet), An Acceptable Time is more properly part of a series of novels about Polyhymnia O'Keefe, better known as Poly (The Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters) or Polly (A House Like a Lotus, An Acceptable Time). Polyhymnia is the name of one of the Greek muses.
Plot summary
Template:Spoilers Happy to be away from her large family for a while, Polly O'Keefe is spending the autumn with her maternal grandparents, Dr. Kate Murry and Dr. Alex Murry, getting a better education from them in science than she would have received at home. Then some odd things start to happen. First, Zachary Gray arrives, a charming but troubled college student who previously pursued Polly in Greece and on Cyprus (A House Like a Lotus). Then, while walking near her grandparents' Connecticut home, Polly meets druids Karralys and Anaral and a warrior named Tav, all of whom lived in the area some three thousand years ago! Bishop Colubra, the brother of a family friend, Dr. Louise Colubra, has been investigating the hieroglyphics found on rocks in nearby, relics of Karralys' time. In doing so, he has also come into repeated contact with Anaral's tribe, the People of the Wind. When Polly and Zach are drawn through a time gate and trapped in ancient Connecticut, neither the Murrys nor Louise Colubra are there to help Polly out of a potentially fatal situation. To end a drought and settle a dispute with the People Across the Lake (a tribe that previously appeared in A Swiftly Tilting Planet), the People of the Wind consider sacrificing Polly for her blood. Lost in fear of his own death from heart failure unless the druids can help, Zachary refuses to interfere with these plans.
Series notes
Polly's grandparents, Kate and Alex Murry, were first introduced in A Wrinkle in Time, the first book in the Time Quartet, but were not given first names. A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet are primarily about Polly's mother, Meg Murry (later Meg Murry O'Keefe) in her teen years, and about Meg's brother Charles Wallace. The other volume in the Time Quartet, Many Waters, is about Polly's other uncles on her mother's side, Sandy and Dennys. Together with the four books in which Polly appears, they are known as the Murry-O'Keefe books[1]. Crossover characters Canon Tallis (who was responsible for Polly's unusual first name) and Adam Eddington (The Arm of the Starfish) connect the Polly O'Keefe books to Madeleine L'Engle's series about the Austin family.
External links
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