in their true essence (hence the description of Mrs. Whatsit's transformation on Uriel into a centaur-like creature with "a head resembling a man's"), but they choose to appear as female to Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace. Although their undeniable power is limited on Camazotz, they do give Meg powerful instruction and advice. L'Engle turns gender constructs on their head even further when she describes Meg's desire to have her father save the day ("Father will make it all right, Meg thought. Everything will be all right now."), and her anger and disappointment over his inability to meet those ingrained expectations. After being nurtured by the clever Aunt Beast, and given the gift of unconditional love by both Aunt Beast and Mrs. Whatsit, Meg then comes to the powerful realization that she (not her father, and not Calvin) must be the one to save Charles Wallace, and she does so using a unique combination of her head and heart: she figures out the riddle that love will be the thing that brings her brother back. While some of the deeper themes might be difficult for elementary school age children to grasp, certainly they could understand the concepts that 1) girls can do everything boys can do, sometimes better; and 2) unconditional love, given and received freely, has unlimited power to transform even what appears to be the most hopeless situation. While many critics have discussed the clear Christian overtones of L'Engle's story and its parallels to God's unconditional love for us,