Stead, Rebecca. 2009. When You Reach Me. New York, NY: Random House Children’s Books. ISBN 978385737425.
Life in New York City in 1978 has never looked quite the same as the narrator, sixth grade Miranda, makes it out to be. Miranda spends her days helping her mom train for being on The $20,000 Pyramid, going to school and ‘working’ on her lunch, and trying to figure out why she lost her best friend, Sal. Miranda has an obsession with learning about time travel and how it works. The fact that Miranda is an enthusiast of the book A Wrinkle in Time By Madeleine L’Engle adds to the interest the reader has in Miranda’s struggle to understand this. She has frequent conversations and debates with her acquaintance, Marcus, regarding the subject.
After receiving a series of strange and elusive notes about saving her friends life, Miranda starts to believe this person knows the future. She struggles with understanding why the author of the notes is asking for her to write him a letter but continues to describe the details of her life, as requested. In the end, Marcus has time traveled, he is a crazy man in New York City but saves Sal’s life. Everything falls together for Miranda and Marcus really does save lives when he reaches her.
The great thing about reading this novel is simplicity. The idea of time travel and getting messages from a friend who is in one place at two different times is proven simple. The reader will never second guess the fact that Marcus has been giving Miranda notes and he did in fact save Sal’s life. The story line is strong and believable. When listening to the story from Miranda’s point-of-view, it feels realistic. She is easily likable and her feelings are portrayed clearly. This creates a bond between the reader and Miranda that makes you believe how she is feeling is the way to feel.
The setting in When You Reach Me is extremely important and detailed. Stead refers to specific streets, restaurants and stores. She is constantly referring back to where things happened. For example, Stead describes New Year’s Day by saying “The laughing man wasn’t on the corner—maybe he didn’t work holidays. Belle’s was closed. Everything felt kind of peaceful and sad and deserted” (2009). This is just one example of many in which the author shows how Miranda feels by describing the world around her.
Details in this story including Miranda’s favorite book, favorite knot, her hobbies and her friends and acquaintances all tie the mystery of the notes together. Stead (2009) has tie used much incorporation of detail to make this novel a mysterious fantasy. Fantasy elements combined with a theme throughout that refers to friendships as a young adult create an interesting and important story line. The friendships can be dramatic, stressful and sometimes confusing but they always influence the direction that your life heads.
Book Sense Book of the Year Award Winner
IRA Children’s Book Award Winner
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winner
Indies’ Choice Book Award Winner
School Library Journal Best Books of the Year Award Winner
Massachusetts Children’s Book Award Winner
Nominated for Black-Eyed Susan Book Award
Nominated for Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award
“The '70s New York setting is an honest reverberation of the era; the mental gymnastics required of readers are invigorating; and the characters, children and adults, are honest bits of humanity no matter in what place or time their souls rest. Just as Miranda rereads L'Engle, children will return to this”. -- Booklist Starred Review
“When she receives a series of enigmatic notes that claim to want to save her life, she comes to believe that they are from someone who knows the future. Miranda spends considerable time observing a raving vagrant who her mother calls "the laughing man" and trying to find the connection between the notes and her everyday life. Discerning readers will realize the ties between Miranda's mystery and L'Engle's plot, but will enjoy hints of fantasy and descriptions of middle school dynamics”. -- School Library Journal
“Twelve-year-old Miranda, a latchkey kid whose single mother is a law school dropout, narrates this complex novel, a work of science fiction grounded in the nitty-gritty of Manhattan life in the late 1970s”. -- Publishers Weekly
- Invite readers to write about where they would travel to if they could travel through time.
- Ask children to read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Have them create a brown bag book review over the book to connect the importance of this book to MIranda’s experiences.
- Other books about time travel:
- Haddix, Margaret Peterson. 2008. Found. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. ISBN 9781416954170.
- Levitin, Sonia. 1999. The Cure. Harcourt. ISBN 0152018271
- Silverthorne, Judith. 2005. The Secret of the Stone House. Coteau Books for Kids. ISBN 1550503251
- Williams, Maiya. 2004. The Golder Hour. Amulet Books. ISBN 0810948230
