When You Reach Me

Stead, R. (2009). When you reach me. New York: Wendy Lamb Books.

Author Website: Stead, R. (n.d.). Rebecca Stead. Retrieved from http://www.rebeccasteadbooks.com/

Author Info: Rebecca Stead grew up in New York and was lucky enough to go to a school where kids were allowed to get lost in books. She became a lawyer and had two kids before she decided that she could make writing a real career. She believes that writing doesn't have any rules and that you can use (parentheticals). She had always been a writer of lots of stories but it wasn't until her son killed her laptop that she decided to write something happy. The setting of When You Reach Me actually takes place in her hometown of New York and the years, 1978-79, are when she was the same age as Miranda, the main character. She wanted to show how independent kids were before technology really was commonplace and how by age nine, most kids were going to the store and running all around town.

Review One: [Review of the book When you reach me]. The Washington Post.

No detail is small, no character minor, in this intricately plotted novel in which the nature of time emerges as the most compelling mystery of all.

Review Two: [Review of the book When you reach me]. (2009, June 22). Publishers Weekly.

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. Miranda's story is set in motion by the appearance of cryptic notes that suggest that someone is watching her and that they know things about her life that have not yet happened. She's especially freaked out by one that reads: "I'm coming to save your friend's life, and my own." Over the course of her sixth-grade year, Miranda details three distinct plot threads: her mother's upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid; the sudden rupture of Miranda's lifelong friendship with neighbor Sal; and the unsettling appearance of a deranged homeless person dubbed "the laughing man." Eventually and improbably, these strands converge to form a thought-provoking whole. Stead (First Light) accomplishes this by making every detail count, including Miranda's name, her hobby of knot tying and her favorite book, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. It's easy to imagine readers studying Miranda's story as many times as she's read L'Engle's, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises. Ages 9-14.

Discussion Questions:

1. Compare Miranda's mother and Annemarie's dad.

2. What character would you choose from the book to be your friend? Why?

Quote:

pg. 51 "'Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way.'

'In the way of what?'

'In the way of what's true..."