Vicky Austin
With a future astrophysicist (John) for an older brother and a younger sister (Suzy) who has always wanted to be a doctor, Vicky sometimes feels at odds with others in her family with her less purposeful, more philosophical approach to life.
[2] The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas (1984, ISBN 0-87788-843-4) is the reader's look at Vicky at the age of seven, five years before her introductory appearance in Meet the Austins.
Tall and skinny, self-described as "the middle Austin and the ugly duckling", she is elated at having been chosen to play the angel in the Christmas Eve pageant at church.
When a blizzard forces cancellation of the pageant and the church service, Vicky must give up her moment in the spotlight, and instead welcome the birth of her baby brother, Rob.
The Anti-Muffins (1997, ISBN 0-8298-0415-3) is a chapter that was omitted from Meet the Austins when it was first published, but restored to the book's later editions in hardcover and paperback.
In it, Vicky is part of an Anti-Muffin Club, a small group of the Austin children and their friends, who believe in not judging by appearances and background.
"The Anti-Muffins" is Chapter Five of the post-1997 Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover and Square Fish paperback editions of Meet the Austins.
As her parents soften the blow by taking the family on a ten-week cross-country camping trip, Vicky meets Zachary Gray, a handsome, charming, mercurial boy who sweeps her off her feet.
Although some of her concerns are eased by Uncle Douglass in California, Vicky remains doubtful of her true identity and maturity throughout the novel.
Told in the third person, the novel relegates Vicky to a more secondary role than in other titles, concentrating instead on family friends Josiah "Dave" Davidson and Emily Gregory.
A Ring of Endless Light (1980, ISBN 0-374-36299-8) is set during the summer following the events of The Young Unicorns, and again employs Vicky Austin as protagonist and first person narrator.
In a television movie adaptation of this novel, which aired on Disney Channel in 2003, Vicky was played by actress Mischa Barton.
Troubling a Star (1994, ISBN 0-374-37783-9) is the last full-length novel about Vicky, and takes place several months after the end of A Ring of Endless Light.
Vicky Austin is the most frequent protagonist in the fiction of Madeleine L'Engle, filling that function in four novels and two shorter works.
Both heroines are caught up in international intrigue (Polly in The Arm of the Starfish, Vicky in Troubling a Star), and both are aided by Canon Tallis when their families fall victim to conspiracy and kidnapping.
In an author's note to a paperback reissue of the Austins series, she further acknowledged that "I share all of Vicky's insecurities, enthusiasms, and times of sadness and growth.
