Citation: Stead, R. (2009). When you reach me. New York, NY: Wendy Lamb Books.
Impressions: This was a very interesting book. Stead has done a fine job of creating a novel concerning time travel that is easy to understand. It is not very clear in the beginning that time travel will play a large role in the literature. Stead's children characters a very well developed. The only thing I felt lacking was the development of the adult characters. Most of the adult characters play a large role but, Stead has not given much information about them.
Reviews:
“If this book makes your head hurt, you’re 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, are relative. 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 friend’s life, and my own . . . you must write me a letter.” Miranda’s first-person narrative is the letter she is sending to the future. Or is it the past? It’s hard to know if the key events ultimately make sense (head hurting!), and it seems the whys, if not the hows, of a pivotal character’s 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 L’Engle, children will return to this." — Ilene Cooper
Cooper, I. (2009).When You Reach Me. Booklist Online, 17(4). Retrieved from http://www.booklistonline.com/When-You-Reach-Me-Rebecca-Stead/pid=3389749
"The prose is streamlined and easygoing, while Miranda’s New York life is richly peopled and authentically urban; touches of quirky humor add energy to a subtly constructed story of individual growth. Offer this to kids who appreciate daily-life stories that reveal the unexpected."-Deborah Stevenson
Stevenson, D. (2009). Book review: when you reach me. The Bulletin of the Center for Children, 63(1). Retrieved from Children's Comprehensive Literature Database.
Library Setting: In the library, a programmer could create a trivia game, much like the $20,000 dollar Pyramid from the book. This trivia game could be made of different questions pertaining the book. In addition, the programmer could ask children to create their own time travel machine. What would it look like? What materials would be needed? Where would you travel? These are just a few examples of questions. They could create time machines out of craft materials and write a small prompt about the machine. After they have done the project, display the time machines and writing prompts so that other patrons may observe.
