Rereading The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle

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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