Madeleine L'Engle

"With Meg Murry's help, the dragons her six-year-old brother saw in the vegetable garden play an important part in his struggle between life and death" -- Title page verso.

The fifteen-year-old Murry twins, Sandy and Dennys, are accidentally sent back to a strange Biblical time period, in which mythical beasts roam the desert and a man named Noah is building a boat in preparation for a great flood.

A seventeen-year-old boy, former member of a tough New York gang, a blind and talented twelve-year-old musician, the Austin family, and Canon Tallis are among the key characters who become involved in a frightening and evil scheme relying on the ability of a refined laser to give complete power over people's minds.

Meg and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for her father, who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government.