A Wrinkle in Time, winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, is the story of the adventures Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe as they search for Meg’s father, a scientist who disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government on the tesseract (a wrinkle in time) problem.
Frequently challenged for “undermining religious beliefs” the book was ranked no. 22 in the ALA’s 100 most banned books for 1990-2000. However, no longer banned and thanks to Disney the books has been turned in to an incredible movie and one that is inspiring others.
The movie has a female-heavy cast and stars inspirational women of color like Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, and Storm Reid. Taylor Richardson, who is only 14-years-old, had a desire for girls around the world to see the compelling cast in action, so she set out to raise money to purchase hundreds of movie tickets for them.
On Taylor’s GoFundMe page, she set an initial goal of $15,000 to buy private screening tickets for 1,000 girls to see the film, give them each a copy of the book, and pay for chaperones. But soon, she exceeded her goal — by more than five times. She raised more than $100,000 to fund screenings of the film.
On an episode of Good Morning America, Richardson explained that she began the Wrinkle in Time campaign because “representation matters.”
“I wanted all girls, especially girls of color, to know they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up and also can struggle and have flaws and still be successful in life,” she said.
With the funds, Taylor and her mother plan to host screen- ings for two weekends, and after that, she will donate the remaining money to other organizations that are trying raise money to host screenings.
When describing why it was so important to her for girls to see the movie, Taylor explained that “it shows young, black girls deserving a chance to be a part of the sci-fi cultural canon.”
“I just want to let girls know their dreams are not limited,” Richardson said. “The sky is not the limit. The universe is.”
