When You Reach Me | Rebecca Stead

When You Reach Me | Rebecca Stead | Great middle grade mystery, and then some

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Reasonable Press Marcus Buckingham Mass Appeal [VHS] Midsomer Murders, ... When You Reach Me

	When You Reach Me Rebecca Stead Wendy Lamb Books, 2009 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 117 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

When You Reach Me

I think that When You Reach Me is a great book for kids who like to read about friendships. You will love the book so much that you will want to read it over and over again!! I like how Mirinda is very caring of her friend. Before I read the book, I looked at the cover and saw that this was going to be a book with a little bit of action and a little bit of exitement.When You reach Me is a great book. Cassie, 9yrs old

Great middle grade mystery, and then some

This is a great light mystery (with a bit of sci-fi thrown in) that I think will appeal to a wide variety of readers, including those who would never think of picking up a sci-fi book or a mystery. For most of the book, the story is just a regular story, with a bit of intrigue. No aliens, no men with dark mustaches, just a story about Miranda and how she has to get on when her best friend stops speaking to her for no reason. The relationships that Miranda, who has only ever really been friends with Sal, ends up forming with her classmates are what keep the book light-hearted in spite of the weird notes she keeps receiving. They are what keep everything normal.

At the same time, these relationships also highlight what is different. At school they are all just kids and they, for the most part, make friends easily. Outside of school, though they are still friends, they are very different. Miranda, whose hair is just brown and who gets stuck with hot pink construction paper for self-portraits, is the daughter of a single mom (as is Sal) who sometimes struggles to make ends meet, but they do alright. Annemarie lives in a building with a doorman and has an elevator that opens right to her apartment; her dad is always making her special snacks and her mom is always as work. Marcus receives free dental care at school because his family cannot afford it otherwise (46). Alice Evans is always really close to peeing her pants (she's not in the "group," and this is why). Julia travels the world with her parents and describes herself as "café au lait" colored with eyes the color of "sixty-percent-cacao-chocolate" (34). We don't get to learn much about Colin's home situation because, well, he's a boy and doesn't invite Miranda over for a sleepover, nor is it blatantly evident from what happens at school. He's just a goofy guy who gets along with everyone. Other than talking a lot about rushing rivers in front of Alice, the kids don't care about any of this, except that Julia is a snob, having picked up her fancy names for light brown and brown (Miranda's assessment of the situation) while learning about chocolate in Switzerland. Some of the adults, on the other hand, care a lot about this stuff. There is one big confrontation, caused by an adult, which starts out about Julia's race and ends up being about Miranda's lack of money. The way that the group handles it, without any intervention or input from the grown-ups, is possibly unrealistic, but it keeps things from getting too preachy. No one ever has to say, "Judging people based on their perceived race or financial status is wrong," and yet the point is made very clearly.

And, of course, there are the letters and the mystery. I don't want to say too much or give anything away. A large part of the fun while reading a mystery is trying to figure out whodunit, and When You Reach Me is no exception. There were definitely points when I thought I had something figured out and I was so frustrated with Miranda because she Just. Didn't. Get. It., but when the end finally rolled around, there was so much more to it than I could have guessed.

Book source: Philly Free Library

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When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

This Newbery winner is the story of Miranda, a pre-teen living in late 1970's NYC. Over the course of several weeks her world is changed by new people and events which challenge her and make her look at the world and what is possible in different ways. I don't mean to be so vague, but giving any piece of the careful construction of this book away takes away from what a pleasure it is to read. Stead is right on the money with her protagonist and first-person writing style, this is really how a girl Miranda's age would think. There is also a very nice homage to A Wrinkle of Time throughout the book, along with a subtle but dense look at temporal physics that I was not expecting, but that added to the book's underlying themes of universality and connection. The mystery throughout the book is never belabored, and even if it does not come to an altogether satisfying conclusion it consistently keeps the story fresh and very fast-moving. This is a sophisticated, very well-written book for any reader, as it is simple enough for a young adult to enjoy but with deeper, more mature lessons about age and responsibility that would resonate with adults.

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A delight!

Actually, I surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying this book. This is why: 1) I rarely like any books whose target audience is middle-schoolers; 2) "When You Reach Me" is a sort of homage to Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle In Time," a novel which I couldn't get myself to finish.

It's a little hard to give a synopsis of the story. 12-year old Miranda's best friend Sal suddenly stops talking to her. The apartment key that Miranda's mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda starts finding mysterious notes that plead her to write down all details of the events leading to Sal's estrangement and those that happen immediately after. The writer of the notes is adamant that these details will help to save someone's life...

What follows is a very peculiar mix of mystery, adventure, and time-travel, a story about friendship, family, and growing-up. I am not sure what exactly I liked about the book, I just know that I couldn't put it down. I think it rightfully deserves the Newberry Medal it was awarded.

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Not as good as it could be.

I got this in the hopes that it would be a great book for my kids one day. Newberry Award and influenced by Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, it seemed like a pretty good bet, but I was disappointed. The story is interesting for the most part but it is simply not developed enough. It was a little hard to follow and the characters were not really that likable. And then there is the single mother...The book brings up the fact that the father is not there but does not explain why. And I don't see why it was necessary to make the mother some kind of kleptomaniac at work. The way she presents it is a bit funny as an adult but do I really want my children reading this and getting the idea that stealing from work is okay? And they spend so much time developing the whole game show thing but in the end it just doesn't add very much to the story. In the end, I think I will end up giving away the book. It isn't something I want to keep in my library.

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