
Rereading The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle
From Rereading Our Childhood by Mary Grace McGeehan and Deborah Kalb
February 19, 2026 · 49 min · Season 3 · Episode 12
About this episode
In this episode, we discuss the themes and context of Madeleine L’Engle’s novel The Young Unicorns.
For this episode, we reread Madeleine L’Engle’s 1968 novel The Young Unicorns, the third book in the Austin family series. We discussed 1960s New York, racial representation, family musical evenings, and how absolutely bonkers this book is. Mentioned on this episode: Other books by L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time (1962) Meet the Austins (1960) The Moon by Night (1963) A Ring of Endless Light (1980) Troubling a Star (1994) A Severed Wasp (1983) New York Times review of The Young Unicorns by Ma...
People in this episode
Hosts: Mary Grace McGeehan, Deborah Kalb
Topics covered
- 1960s New York
- racial representation
- family dynamics
- literary analysis
- Madeleine L'Engle
Keywords
- The Young Unicorns
- Madeleine L'Engle
- 1960s
- family
- New York
- literature
- book discussion
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: New York Times
Books & works: The Young Unicorns, A Wrinkle in Time, Meet the Austins, The Moon by Night, A Ring of Endless Light, Troubling a Star, A Severed Wasp
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