Module 4: When You Reach Me

Module 4:  When You Reach Me

Book Cover Image

• Book Summary:   When You Reach Me is about a twelve year old girl named Miranda who is living and growing up with her mom in New York City.  The book starts off with Miranda's mom practicing for a game show to win $20,000.  One day Miranda comes home and discover that the house key is missing and the first letter by a unknown person.  Miranda soon finds herself trying to solve the mystery of who is sending her the mysterious letters.  The laughing man, who does weird kicks and punches in the air, saves the life of Miranda's friend Sal.  After this incident, the mysterious letters start to make more sense.  Miranda puts the pieces together and discovers that the laughing man is the person sending her the letters.  Marcus is a kid who is into time travel, who ends up also being the laughing man traveling through time.
• APA Reference of Book:

Stead, R. (2009).  When you reach me.  New York, New York:  Random House Inc.

• Impressions:  When You Reach Me is a different type of story than I would normally read.  I found it interesting the way the author brought in the topic of time travel to captivate her audience.  The author wrote outside of the box.  For example when she stated "Marcus is the magic thread: You are the laughing man. You are Marcus.  Marcus is the laughing man" (Stead, 2009).  I enjoyed the way the author built her characters.  The characters Marcus, Julia, and AnneMaria weren't always who they seemed  to be.  For example, at the beginning of the story, Marcus seemed like he was the neighborhood bully, but he actually turned out to be a good and smart kid.
• Professional Review: 
  When You Reach Me
  Rebecca Stead. 2009. New York: Wendy Lamb.
  The year is 1979 and 12-year-old Miranda is facing a lot of chal-
  lenges in life. She is trying to help her mother prepare to compete
  and win on
  The $20,000 Pyramid
  television show by practicing
  The $20,000 Pyramid
  television show by practicing
  The $20,000 Pyramid
  with her every night, learning to navigate sixth-grade society, at-
  tempting to determine the qualities of true friendship, and struggling with a
  bizarre secret that defies explanation.
  When her best friend for life (she thought), Sal, seems to abandon her,
  Miranda is not only hurt but also frustrated by his strange behavior. A compli-
  cated chain of events begins when an older boy punches Sal as he and Miranda
  make their way home and ends as the story accelerates to its close. People are not
  always who they appear to be, and events that seem completely unrelated may
  have everything to do with each other when a final karmic event restores justice
  in Miranda’s world.
  Miranda’s favorite novel is Madeleine L’Engle’s
  A Wrinkle in Time
  , a story of
  travel and conflict across time and dimensions. Elements of L’Engle’s story work
  their way into Miranda’s own conflicts with an eccentric homeless man who in-
  habits her block on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, with other young women her
  age, with Sal, and with an anonymous stranger whom Miranda never sees but
  who manages to leave her notes that accurately predict events before they happen
  to her. The stranger claims to have come to save the life of someone Miranda
  cares about and seems to know much more about her than anyone possibly could.
  His only request is that she write him a letter about how the events of her life
  turn out, and this letter becomes the book’s narration premise.
  All will be explained in the end, but in the meantime, Miranda will help her
  mother become a successful competitor on
  The $20,000 Pyramid
  , work for free
  at Jimmy’s Sandwich Shop, come to terms with differences of race and socioeco-
  nomic status, explore the possibility of a stepfather, and figure out who her real
  friends are. Only at the very end will she learn what happened with Sal, why the
  homeless man spends so much time under the mailbox, who is leaving her the
  notes, and what all of this has to do with her life.
  Rebecca Stead brilliantly weaves details of setting from memories of her
  own teen years on the Upper West Side, including a strange individual and her
  mom’s appearance with Dick Clark on
  The $20,000 Pyramid
  . The story’s science
  fiction aspect will not become readily apparent until almost the very end, but it
  is crucial to the plot (Blasingame, 2011).
  Reference:  Blasingame,  J. (March, 2011).  When you reach me.  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 54(6) p461-464
  
  

  • Library Uses:  When You Reach Me could be used to have students discuss and write about the mysterious.  Students can research the topic of time travel.