A Wrinkle in Time

[nicolewi]

With the movie coming out, I thought this might be a fun read-aloud with my 7 and 9 year olds. However, on Common Sense Media many parents seem to recommend 9 as the minimum age for the book; some older. Apparently it's pretty complicated and also somewhat scary. I must have read it as a kid but do not remember it AT ALL. What do you think?

ETA: to be clear, I'm talking about reading the book, not about taking them to the movie. I thought it might be fun to know the story, and then IF they wanted to see the movie we'd tackle that later.

[CrazyLucky]

I have been reading the book with my 5 and 7 year old and we're going to the movie on Sunday. The 7 year old is definitely more sensitive than the 5 year old. The 7 year old cried at Coco. Anyway, I saw that recommended age also, but at this point I've been building up seeing the movie for over a month, and I'm not backing out. if it's too much, we'll just leave early.

[gastro]

We won’t be seeing it anytime soon. My DS1 is 6 (almost 7) and is very sensitive to the media he is exposed to. He takes everything in and there are lots of questions, anxiety, could this really happen, could this happen to me. And it stays with him for a long time.
He also had a really hard time with Coco - it scared him and made him sad. He saw it months ago and still brings it up.

I think it’s kid dependent but with a 9 rating - we won’t be watching it for a long while.

[nicolewi]

@mama2b, good memory! Yes! That's actually why I'm really asking about reading the book, not seeing the movie (yet). Sometimes it's nice to know the story, without having to watch the movie if it's too intense.

[hocus2]

We tried reading it. 

It is very wordy and slow moving in the first few chapters and a lot of science concepts are in the book and may go over the heads of young children. There are scary parts. My kids had no interest. I think 9 is a fairly accurate assessment to be honest.

[waverly]

We listened to the audiobook. I had to skip a couple of the scarier sections. Kids are 5 and 7.

[auroraloo]

AWIT is my favorite book of all time. I love it. It is not a great read-aloud though. I would let a good reader under 9 read it for sure (but I think common sense media is a little uptight in their ratings, the librarian in me), but while I don't think it's incredibly scary, a sensitive kid would struggle. I think unless you have a really good reader/listener, it's better for older kids, just because there is a LOT of inferencing to be done and even middle schoolers struggle with that.

[CrazyLucky]

I did take my kids to the movie this past Sunday (DD is 5, DS is 7). We got the 3D version because it was playing when we wanted to watch. The 7 year old was enthralled. He loved it. He watched the whole time and really paid attention and he asked questions about it on the way home. The 5 year old says she liked it, but she spent a lot of time crying at the "sad parts." It was not too scary for either of them. You don't see any actual brain or see them in 2D or see the pain of tessering.
For me, perhaps because we had just read the book and it was so fresh in my mind, I was disappointed by the sections they chose to leave out. I really wanted to see how Aunt Beast and her planet would be shown, but that whole chapter is missing. I do think if you want to see it, it's worth it to see it in the theater.