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(More customer reviews)When Meet the Austins was first published in 1960, standards and sensibilities in childrens/young adult publishing were very different from what they are now. Madeleine L'Engle had a great deal of trouble selling this book because it began with a death, which was considered too upsetting for children to handle.
Even when Vanguard Press agreed to publish it, the novel was not published intact. An entire chapter, entitled The Anti-Muffins, was omitted. The chapter was about a small club of children who believe that people should not be too much like muffins, i.e., looking and behaving the same, and judged by superficial criteria (if it comes from the oven, it must be a muffin). It's hard to say after all these years whether the anti-conformist message was considered dangerous, or whether someone was upset by the middle class WASP kids being good friends with a poor Hispanic farm boy.
In 1980, The Pilgrim Press published The Anti-Muffins as a separate book. It has long-since gone out of print, and is considered rare. That hasn't stopped L'Engle fans from looking for the book ever since, so that they can read this missing chapter in the lives of the Austin family.
I'm glad to say this is no longer necessary. The current Farrar Straus Giroux edition of Meet the Austins, first published in 1997, restores The Anti-Muffins material back into the novel from which it was cut. (I'm pretty sure that even now, in 2002, the paperback edition still does not have this extra material.) If you're a fan of L'Engle's fiction, and especially of the books about Vicky Austin and her family, spend the extra money and get the hardcover. You won't regret it! ...
Click Here to see more reviews about: Meet the Austins: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 1
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