Miranda has lost her best friend, Sal, who lives in her apartment building. One day, while the 2 of them were walking home from faculty, a neighborhood child named Marcus punched Sal, and from that day on Sal just seemed to drift away: he no longer waits to walk with Miranda, and he refuses even to appear at her after they stumble upon every other. In the confusing void left by Sal, Miranda strikes up new friendships with Annemarie--who was recently ditched by her generally-snotty relief Julia--and Colin, "this short child who seemed to finish up in my category each year" (p. 54). The 3 of them get lunchtime jobs together at the local sandwich search, Jimmy's, and bond over cheese sandwiches with smelly pickles.
Someday Miranda finds her apartment mysteriously unlocked once college, and also the spare key missing from its hiding spot, unnerving both her and her mother. Shortly thereafter Miranda receives the subsequent mysterious note:
"This is hard. Harder than I expected, even together with your help. However I have been practicing, and my preparations go well. I'm returning to save your friend's life, and my own. I raise two favors. 1st, you must write me a letter. Second, please keep in mind to mention the situation of your house key. The trip is a tough one. I will not be myself after I reach you" (p. 60).
Miranda continues to receive notes like this--four in all--each as eerie and enigmatic as the first. The notes set her a mystery to unravel: Who is sending the notes? What kind of trip is that the sender coming up with to take? That of Miranda's friends will be saved? And from what? And what's with that crazy homeless guy on the corner that sleeps along with his head under the mailbox? These questions, together with the rift between Miranda and Sal, drive the story forward.
Many things create this book appealing. The first, in fact, is that the mystery: the reader is as intent on solving it as Miranda is. Stead provides the mystery depth beyond the mere content of the notes by lacing the book with the science fiction theme of your time travel. The foremost obvious approach this theme shows up is in conversations Miranda has with certain friends--in specific Marcus, a math and physics prodigy who thinks time travel is theoretically possible. But, time travel is additionally woven into the book via Miranda's attachment to L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, a book in that the protagonist, Meg, travels through time to save her family members. (Incidentally, Stead says within the acknowledgements that L'Engle's books captivated her as a child.)
Despite the compelling mystery, though, When You Reach Me is most deeply concerning friendship. Specifically, the novel addresses the question of how to carry on to previous friendships while not stifling them, and it insightfully brings out the stabilizing result that new friendships will have in the hassle to preserve or reclaim recent ones. Though I refrain from specifics here so as not to spoil the plot, the novel's narrative reflections on friendship are extremely thoughtful and resonant. This theme of friendship will speak deeply to tweens navigating the frequently tumultuous social world of middle school.
The book is additionally simply very clever. For example, as I already noted, Miranda's mother needs to win on The $20,000 Pyramid. The ultimate part of the sport show is termed the "Winner's Circle", in that a collection of objects is described to the contestant and she or he is needed to say what class the objects belong to. For example, if the objects were "a tube of toothpaste, someone's hand" the contestant would say "belongings you squeeze" (p. 39). Stead cleverly titles most of the chapters in the book with classes like that, like "Things You Keep during a Box," "Things That Go Missing," and "Things You Hide." And positive enough, Stead puts objects in every chapter that match into these titular categories. Once a whereas, it became a fun further game to search out what the "things that smell" or "things that kick" were within the chapter I used to be reading!
In addition to these factors that give When You Reach Me subjective charm, the book is developmentally valuable for young readers. In explicit, the book communicates hopeful positive messages regarding some of life's most vital themes. Indeed, it appears to be half of Stead's explicit purpose to raise, for an instant, the "veil" that usually hides from us "the globe because it really is," in all its "beauty, and cruelty, and unhappiness, and love" (p. seventy one). In different words, half of Stead's aim is to inspire truthful but hopeful reflection on a number of the things that matter most in life.
Stead's elevation of the price of friendship is maybe the foremost vital and placing example of what makes this book sensible for tweens. Her target the deep importance of friendship could be a welcome counter-weight to the catty, superficial social culture typical of middle school.
The possibility of redemption is another developmentally valuable theme that Stead explores in the novel. For example, the book builds toward second possibilities for Miranda's mother--both vocationally, and relationally. Similarly, Miranda includes a redemptive conversion in the means she views and treats her classmates Julia and Alice Evans. Whereas before she viewed Julia simply as a competitor for Annemarie's affection, and Alice as the weird child who waited too long to travel to the bathroom, toward the top of the book Miranda's veil is suddenly removed, revealing Julia as Annemarie's faithful friend, and Alice as an insecure outsider. This insight offers Miranda new compassion and kindness toward both of them.
In sum, When You Reach Me is a fantastic book for children aged nine years and up. Not only does it engage interesting themes bundled into a compelling mystery, however it elevates friendship and redemption, and thereby encourages the correct sort of values in tweens.
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Leslie Mitchell has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Friendship, you can also check out his latest website about:
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