When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

When You Reach Me
Rebecca Stead

Stead, Rebecca. 2009. When You Reach Me. New York: Random House Children’s Books. ISBN: 9780385737425.

Defying the laws of time and space, Miranda is caught in a web of confusion as she receives notes that seem to come from the future, predicting events in her life. Growing up in 1970’s New York City, Miranda is the average pre-teen with friends, fights, and teenage angst. Miranda starts to receive notes in odd places about events that are going to happen in her life. The one that frightens her most talks about saving lives from disaster. After her best friend, Sal, decides to take a break from their friendship Miranda sets out to make new friends. One of these new acquaintances is a boy named Marcus, who unbeknownst to her also happens to be the crazy man that lives under the mailbox on their street. This is where the laws of time and space unravel and at the end when the crazy man saves Sal from being hit by a bus by sacrificing himself, Miranda realizes the impossible truth. Marcus and the crazy man were one and the same. Using her copy of Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time as her basis of understanding time travel, Miranda tries to piece it all together.

Part mystery, part fantasy, and part realism, the characters in this book are as realistic as they come. Teenage angst is a trait that most people can relate to and in this book the characters have it down to an art form. Miranda is the quintessential New Yorker; she is able to take care of herself but sometimes needs a mother’s touch. Her friends all come from different backgrounds and fill the proverbial melting pot of which the country is. By the end of the book the reader feels as if they are part of the book, identifying with the characters and feeling their pain is the mark of a good author. You care and you want to see them persevere.

With the small element of the fantastical present, this plot is still believable and the “what if” quality makes one wonder is time travel could be possible and should we look more carefully around us. This original plotline involves a quest of sorts. Miranda wants to figure out why Sal has decided to push himself away from her, and on this quest she is able make different friends and unravel the mystery of the notes she finds placed strategically for her to find.

Since the setting for this story is New York City, the visualization is easy to see in the mind’s eye. It is a place that is easily pictured; however the author does a fantastic job of describing Miranda’s apartment with the “lobby with the cigarette smell and the ugly ceiling light full of dead bugs” (Stead, 119.) Those small details give a bigger picture of what the world Miranda lives in looks like. Friendship is an overarching theme in When You Reach Me. All of the characters are dealing with how to keep and let go of friends. This requires some of them to sacrifice themselves while some are sacrificing others. This theme is perfect for the age group of the book, since this theme is also central in young adult’s lives. How the characters navigate their friendships could help readers understand what might work in their own lives.

The style of writing that the author chooses to use in her book is clear and concise with emphasis on dialogue versus narrative. Written in the first person, Miranda narrates her life and how it is seen through her eyes. She is straightforward and to the point with only a little trepidation in her thoughts. Miranda seems wise beyond her years and her speech reflects that. It has been only her and her mother for most of her life and the relationship appears symbiotic, they rely on each other and let each other’s strengths prevail.

Rebecca Stead won the Newbery Medal for When You Reach Me plus many other awards including: Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Book of the Year (2009), Parents’ Choice Gold Award (2009), and New York Times Notable Book (2009). Winning these awards goes hand in hand with the starred reviews the book also received.

From School Library Journal, Starred Review.
Sixth-grader Miranda lives in 1978 New York City with her mother, and her life compass is Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. 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. Stead's novel is as much about character as story. Miranda's voice rings true with its faltering attempts at maturity and observation. The story builds slowly, emerging naturally from a sturdy premise. As Miranda reminisces, the time sequencing is somewhat challenging, but in an intriguing way. The setting is consistently strong. The stores and even the streets–in Miranda's neighborhood act as physical entities and impact the plot in tangible ways. This unusual, thought-provoking mystery will appeal to several types of readers.–Caitlin Augusta, The Darien Library, CT

From The Horn Book Magazine, Starred Review.
"Closing revelations are startling and satisfying but quietly made, their reverberations giving plenty of impetus for the reader to go back to the beginning and catch what was missed."

From Booklist, Starred Review.
"[T]he 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."

Readers who enjoyed this book might also enjoy Stead’s other book, First Light. For those that have never read A Wrinkly in Time, reading it will give some insight into Miranda as a character. For other books with a twist like time travel readers might enjoy: Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool, Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, and Skellig by David Almond.

Time travel is an interesting subject as it allows the imagination to open up and make anything possible. A fun activity to try with a group of classroom is to pair students off and have them pick a place they would travel back in time to if it were possible. Have one student write as if they were in the present traveling back, and the other to write as if they were in the back traveling forwards. Their stories can then be combined and they can share what they learned about their “trips” while time traveling.