I read this as a child and remember liking it a lot, so I reread it this week in preparation for the new movie coming out. It's a fanciful, magical, sentimental book focused around the heroine Meg, who is struggling with being unpopular at school and a missing father. Reading it now as an adult, it's an extremely quick read with very simple character development; I don't remember this bothering me as a child, but this is definitely a book aimed at younger readers, not the level of detail of a Harry Potter or even Narnia. Still, it has some interesting ideas and concepts, like Meg's struggle with self-dislike, her realization of the love in her family that she's taken for granted and learns to appreciate more, the concept of the tesseracts and aliens, and lots of strong female role models (her mother is a dedicated scientist for example). I'd happily give it to a child maybe in the 7-10 year old range, teens might be starting to find it a little brief.