When You Reach Me

When You Reach Me

Written By Rebecca Stead

Image accessed 12/03/2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:When_you_reach_me.jpg

Summary

Set in late 1970s New York, 12 year old Miranda is dealing with the everyday issues of life in in the big city. Miranda lives with her single mother in a rundown apartment complex, is struggling to come to terms with her best friend turning his back on her, navigating the hazards of walking home from school and learning to make new friends when she starts to receive cryptic notes that predict the future.

Critical Analysis

            Miranda is a down to earth, likable girl who reflects the issues that so many of us face when growing up. Completely relatable, Miranda navigates the mundane and the fantastical with a genuine earnestness that lends credibility to the story Stead weaves. Set in New York City, When You Reach Me achieves a gritty, genuine foundation that seamlessly meshes the regular occurrences of urban life with a fantastical spark that takes the readers preconceived notions and turns them on their head. These once everyday encounters with New York’s darker elements (the homeless, the mentally ill, the pervert streakers, the urban bullies) become illuminated by Stead’s unique writing style. Readers uncover an entirely different reason explaining why people are they way they are.

Wholly believable, Stead introduces the fantastical elements of her story slowly and mysteriously. She builds and interweaves both elements together so believably, that when true fantasy emerges, the reader is already completely and utterly invested in the journey. Witnessing Miranda begin to understand the letters she has received, getting to know her circle of friends and then finally making the connection between the two, readers begin to grasp some of the story’s universal themes of friendship and acceptance. By looking beyond our assumptions and by leaving our comfort zone, we are able to form amazing friendships that we might be inclined to brush aside. It is only when Sal stops being friends with Miranda that she is able to seek out new friends. It is only when she lets go of her long held assumptions about Julia that is she able to transform from enemy into a fast companion. By getting to know the young man who punched Sal, Miranda is able to help save Sal’s life.  By looking beyond the surface of what we expect, we can find the extraordinary.

Connections

John Green’s Paper Towns is another story that heavily references a published work, but rather than Madeline LEngles’ A Wrinkle in Time, Paper Towns relies on Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. While Paper Towns does not have any fantastical elements there is, however, a mystery that flows through the book, keeping the reader guessing.  Paper Towns is also shaped by the setting of the story – overdeveloped Florida, much as When You Reach Me is grounded by its gritty New York setting.

Awards

Winner of the 2010 John Newbery Medal

Reviews

School Library Journal (07/01/2009):
Gr 5-8Sixth-grader Miranda lives in 1978 New York City with her mother, and her life compass is Madeleine LEngles "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 Mirandas mystery and LEngles plot, but will enjoy hints of fantasy and descriptions of middle school dynamics. Steads novel is as much about character as story. Mirandas 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 Mirandas neighborhood act as physical entities and impact the plot in tangible ways. This unusual, thought-provoking mystery will appeal to several types of readers

Kirkus Review - Children (06/01/2009):
When Miranda's best friend Sal gets punched by a strange kid, he abruptly stops speaking to her; then oddly prescient letters start arriving. They ask for her help, saying, "I'm coming to save your friend's life, and my own." Readers will immediately connect with Miranda's fluid first-person narration, a mix of Manhattan street smarts and pre-teen innocence. She addresses the letter writer and recounts the weird events of her sixth-grade year, hoping to make sense of the crumpled notes. Miranda's crystalline picture of her urban landscape will resonate with city teens and intrigue suburban kids. As the letters keep coming, Miranda clings to her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, and discusses time travel with Marcus, the nice, nerdy boy who punched Sal. Keen readers will notice Stead toying with time from the start, as Miranda writes in the present about past events that will determine her future. Some might guess at the baffling, heart-pounding conclusion, but when all the sidewalk characters from Miranda's Manhattan world converge amid mind-blowing revelations and cunning details, teen readers will circle back to the beginning and say, "Wow...cool."

Booklist (06/01/2009):
Grades 4-7 *Starred Review* If this book makes your head hurt, youre not alone. Sixth-grader Miranda admits that the events she relates make her head hurt, too. Time travel will do that to you. The story takes place in 1979, though time frames, as readers learn, a rerelative. Miranda and Sal have been best friends since way before that. They both live in a tired Manhattan apartment building and walk home together from school. One day everything changes. Sal is kicked and punched by a schoolmate and afterward barely acknowledges Miranda. Which leaves her to make new friends, even as she continues to reread her ratty copy of A Wrinkle in Time and tutor her mother for a chance to compete on The$20,000 Pyramid. She also ponders a puzzling, even alarming series of events that begins with a note: I am coming to save your friends life, and my own . . . you must write me a letter. Mirandas first-person narrative is the letter she is sending to the future. Or is it the past? Its hard to know if the key events ultimately make sense (head hurting!), and it seems the whys, if not the hows, of a pivotal characters actions are not truly explained. Yet everything else is quite wonderful. 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 LEngle, children will return to this

Publishers Weekly (06/22/2009):
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. Mirandas 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. Shes especially freaked out by one that reads: Im coming to save your friends life, and my own. Over the course of her sixth-grade year, Miranda details three distinct plot threads: her mothers upcoming appearance on "The $20,000 Pyramid"; the sudden rupture of Mirandas 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 Mirandas name, her hobby of knot tying and her favorite book, Madeleine LEngles "A Wrinkle in Time". Its easy to imagine readers studying Mirandas story as many times as shes read LEngles, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises.

References

Booklist 06/01/2009 pg. 66 (EAN 9780385737425, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Green, John. 2008. Paper Towns. New York, NY: Dutton Books. ISBN 9780525478188

Kirkus Review - Children 06/01/2009 (EAN 9780385737425, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Publishers Weekly 06/22/2009 pg. 45 (EAN 9780385737425, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

School Library Journal 07/01/2009 pg. 93 (EAN 9780385737425, Hardcover) - *Starred Review

Stead, Rebecca. 2009. When You Reach Me. New York, NY: Random House Children's Books. ISBN 0385737424