It was a dark and stormy night. Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger. "Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me sit down for a moment, and then I'll be on my way. Speaking of ways, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract."...

The youngest of the Murry children must travel through time and space in a battle against an evil dictator who would destroy the entire universe.

Polly's stay with her grandparents in Connecticut becomes an extraordinary experience as she encounters old friends and mysterious strangers and finds herself traveling back in time to play a crucial role in a prehistoric confrontation.