A Book Review of: WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Stead, Rebecca. 2009. When You Reach Me. New York: Wendy Lamb Books. ISBN 9780385906647

SUMMARY

Miranda is a latch-key child who lives in New York City with her single mother in a small apartment. The story is told in the form of a letter which seems like semi-chronological journal entries in response to a note she has received from an unknown time traveler. Miranda has grown up attached to the hip to her childhood best friend, Sal. Sal becomes distant from Miranda after being punched in the stomach by a mysterious older boy. Miranda ponders why Sal has pulled away from her as she deals with acquainting herself with potential friends, her mother’s acceptance onto a television game show, the prospect of her mother remarrying, the crazy man who lives on the corner of her apartment complex, the time traveler’s messages and the mysterious boy, Marcus, who punched Sal. Miranda covets the book, A Wrinkle in Time, often likening herself to Meg Murray, and discusses theories of time travel with Marcus, who seems to think it is possible. When Marcus approaches Sal one day as the other boy walks home, Sal flees, running into the street without looking. He is about to be struck and killed by a truck, when the crazy man rushes out into the street and kicks Sal out of the way, taking the boy’s place and getting killed instead. The cryptic message from the time traveler and the conversations about time travel with Marcus suddenly make sense. Marcus is the crazy man come back into the past to rescue Sal who his younger past-self inadvertently scared into the street. In order for him to accomplish this feat, Miranda must follow the instructions given to her in his note. Miranda chooses to write this story into a notebook and deliver it to Marcus without telling him what it is. Her mother goes on to win the game show and enough money to pay the tuition for law school. Miranda learns that Sal distanced himself from her because he sensed before she did how isolated the two of them were from the rest of their peers, and she agrees that they should “see other people”. Over the course of the story, Miranda has grown from a girl with a limited worldview to a young woman ready for new people and experiences.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Rebecca’s Stead’s novel When You Reach Me is told in an intriguing mixture of narrative which follows a short span of the main character Miranda’s life as she deals with new and old social relationships, and a journal of sorts Miranda addresses to an unnamed time traveler. The story actually begins at the end, for Miranda is already following the instructions given to her in mysterious note that is left inside of the apartment she lives in with her mother one afternoon. Readers enter Miranda’s world being told that Miranda’s mother is to be a contestant on a game show, but this comes as no surprise to Miranda for she had already been told of this event in advance by a stranger who she addresses as “you.”

Immediately, a mystery is born to the reader who wants to know who the “you” is, and since the book does not seem to be taking place in a fantastic setting, a reader may not expect the “you” being addressed to be a time traveler. Perhaps, Miranda’s family knows someone who works in the studio where the game show is filmed. Perhaps, they are cheaters. Stead intrigues the readers to turn the pages by slowly revealing information. As Miranda is writing this journal to the time traveler’s past self who has not lived his future and ventured to the past, she must begin the story at the beginning.

Readers feel as if they are traveling through time, back to when the important events that lead up to the starting point of the story begin. Miranda introduces herself as a latch-key child. Her mother works for a law firm, and her biological father is not in the picture. Her mother has a long-term boyfriend, named Richard, of whom her mother has reservations about marrying having been let down by a man before. The pivotal moment of Miranda’s sixth grade year is when her friend Sal is punched in the stomach by a then unnamed older boy. To Miranda, Sal seemed to detach himself from her that day, and she has to learn to be her own person because until then, she had thought of her and Sal as two halves of a whole.

Miranda’s witty narration will make readers smile if not laugh out loud as she helps her mom train for the questions that might be asked on the game show. Her life revolves around making flashcards for her mother, making new friends, and solving a mystery. Miranda breaks down the social environment of her sixth grade classes, explaining the different hierarchies and how friendships she’d observed work. In one instance, a girl would be best friends with one girl for a while, they would have a minor falling out, ignore each other for a week, and then come together again like nothing has happened. Miranda watches the groups like a hunter stalking prey, waiting for a fall-out and a chance to move in and score a new friend. Miranda approaches a girl named Annemarie after she and her best friend Julia, who Miranda does not like, have a falling out, and invites her to become her new friend. After befriending Annemarie, Miranda also starts to notice a boy named Colin. As she, Annemarie and Colin get a lunchtime job together at a sandwich shop near the school Miranda begins to feel jealous of how close Annemarie and Colin are. She admits to never noticing Colin until then, though he had always been around; she had been too wrapped up in Sal.

When Miranda finds that the boy who punched Sal goes to their school, she wants to interrogate him, blaming him for what has happened to her and Sal’s relationship. However, when she speaks to him, she not only learns that his name is Marcus, but that he is exceptionally bright and is familiar with the theories of time travel used in her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time. Miranda likens herself to the protagonist Meg and has read the book numerous times, but does not truly understand the concepts of time mentioned in the novel until her various conversations with Marcus, and surprisingly with Julia, who Miranda finds shares similar interests. The reality of racism is worked into the piece as Julia is Black and the man Miranda works for at the sandwich shop refuses to let Julia work for him and accuses her of stealing money from him because of her color.

Small clues begin to work themselves into the narrative that almost seem like random acts of weirdness, such as: the naked man who runs around town square causing the children to have to stay indoors for lunch, the stolen money from the sandwich shop Miranda and her friends work at, the stolen shoe, and the crazy man who rants nonsense at the street corner and kicks his legs out like he’s practicing for football. The largest clues are the notes themselves which inform Miranda that the traveler is here to save her friend’s life, but he needs favors from her to be able to do so. He informs Miranda that he will not be in his right mind, for the trip is difficult and that he can carry nothing but the paper he stuffs into his mouth.

A reader of the story will find themselves so involved in Miranda’s life and growing social relationships that one could forget they are reading a work of science fiction, until Miranda pens another entry addressed to the mysterious “you” or she receives or reviews another strange letter.

As Miranda begins to invite Annemarie over for sleepovers and visit Annemarie’s home, a reader wonders where Miranda’s other friends are. She has gone to school with most of the people she encounters all of her life, and only now she is getting to know them. Miranda begins to fret about her low socioeconomic status compared to Annemarie’s and begins to express embarrassment over the shoddiness of her apartment as compared to the pristine apartment of Annemarie. She realizes that she has hurt her mother’s feelings, and for the first time sees that her mother is also ashamed. She begins to become less selfish. If her mother wins the game show, one of her goals is to get wall-to-wall carpeting in Miranda’s room. Miranda instead plots with Richard, wanting to see her mother go to law school, which she had originally planned to attend before having Miranda, and doing better for herself.

There is a moment of sweetness when Colin comes to visit Sal, claiming he was only vaguely aware that Miranda lived in the same apartment complex as Sal. He invites Miranda to play with them, but Sal is obviously against the idea. A short while later, Colin appears on Miranda’s doorstep; he gives her a quick kiss and runs away: her first kiss.

When Miranda finally asks Marcus why he punched Sal, Marcus says he did it just to see what would happen. He feels guilty about it later. He tries to approach Sal, wanting to apologize, but when Sal sees him he runs without watching where he is going. Marcus is too late to realize that Sal is running away from him and continues to pursue him until Sal runs into the street. A large truck is coming, and things begin to move in slow motion. The crazy man is suddenly in the street, wearing the stolen shoe. He gives Sal a swift kick, knocking him out of the path of the truck and is hit instead.

The pieces of the puzzle fall into place for Miranda then. She remembers a conversation with Marcus about time travel and how no one would recognize your future self come back to the past because you will have aged. She remembers the crazy man saying words like, “Pocket…shoe…” She remembers the naked man in town square. She remembers Julia’s explanation of time being a ribbon and how all events in time happen simultaneously. She recalls the notes saying things like: I have come back to save your friend. The trip is a difficult one; I will not be in my right mind. I can carry nothing. She remembers the crazy man kicking his legs at random.

Stead cleverly has Miranda compose a list to help the reader draw the connections if the reader has not already drawn them. When the first note is left in Miranda’s apartment, one of Richard’s shoes is stolen. One of Richard’s legs is shorter than the other, so he wears a special orthopedic shoe to correct the height difference. The shoe the crazy man wears when he kicks Sal out of the way is Richard’s. The crazy man liked to kick his legs out at random---he was practicing kicking Sal. The traveler could carry nothing—meaning not even clothes, connecting him to the naked man who randomly appeared in town square. I will not be in my right mind. The time traveler is the crazy man, but why would he come back to save Sal? Then, it becomes clear. Marcus punched Sal, creating Sal’s fear of him. Had Marcus not punched Sal or realized that Sal would be afraid of him if he approached, Sal would not have run out into the street, making Marcus partially responsible for the incident. Marcus’s keen interest in time travel becomes the key; the crazy man is Marcus from the future, and Marcus is the one Miranda must deliver her story to.

Stead never overwhelms the reader with clues or theory and creates a science fiction novel that readers new to the genre can easily follow and enjoy. It is not simply the tale of a time traveler and a parallel to theories from A Wrinkle in Time, but the story of a girl growing up and moving past childhood. When Miranda visits Sal in the hospital, she learns that the day he was punched was not the day Sal had started moving away from her. Sal had noticed before Miranda how entangled they were with each other. He realized that they did not have any other friends besides each other, and in essence, they were hindering each other from growing up, maturing and expanding their horizons. Hearing it said out loud makes Miranda finally accept this fact. Being apart from Sal was not terrible; she has changed. She and Sal remain friends, but not as close, and she continues to develop relationships outside of Sal. A nice parallel to Miranda’s decision to move on is Miranda’s mother decision to move on. After winning the game show, her mother is presented with applications for law school courtesy of Richard and Miranda. Miranda is silently urging her mother to move forward: go to school, marry Richard, do not worry about me so much, because I am no longer a child.

Miranda refers to Marcus as “the magic thread”. He saved Sal, but maybe he has helped her as well. Readers will enjoy Stead’s quick-moving work with its easy dialogue, humorous situations and phrases as they are easily nudged into the genre of science fiction. Perhaps, they may even venture to read A Wrinkle in Time to further understand the concepts of time travel used in the book. When You Reach Me can also be viewed as historical fiction, since Stead casually places us in a very accurate depiction of New York City in the 1970’s. Stead ends her work on a positive note with readers knowing that prospects for Miranda’s future are bright and unlimited.

REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Starred Review. Grade 5-8–Sixth-grader Miranda lives in 1978 New York City with her mother, and her life compass is Madeleine L'Engle's 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 Miranda's mystery and L'Engle's plot, but will enjoy hints of fantasy and descriptions of middle school dynamics. Stead's novel is as much about character as story. Miranda's 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 Miranda's neighborhood act as physical entities and impact the plot in tangible ways. This unusual, thought-provoking mystery will appeal to several types of readers.–Caitlin Augusta, The Darien Library, CT, SLJ

"[W]hen 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.'"--Kirkus Reviews

"[T]he 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."--Booklist.

"Closing revelations are startling and satisfying but quietly made, their reverberations giving plenty of impetus for the reader to go back to the beginning and catch what was missed."--Hornbook.

"It's easy to imagine readers studying Miranda's story as many times as she's read L'Engle's, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises."--Publishers Weekly.

"Absorbing."--People Magazine.

"Readers ... are likely to find themselves chewing over the details of this superb and intricate tale long afterward."--Wall Street Journal.

“Incandescent.”--The Washington Post.

"Smart and mesmerizing."--The New York Times.

CONNECTIONS

If young readers are interested in the science and references made by the author to Madeleine L’Engle’s work A Wrinkle in Time, they may want to read the book for themselves to understand the comparisons made.

L’Engle, Madeleine. 1962. A Wrinkle in Time. New York: Laurel-Leaf. ISBN: 978-0312367541

If young readers enjoyed reading about normal characters, like themselves, coming of age while finding his or herslf tangled in fantastic science fiction situations, they may like other works by Madeleine L’Engle that continue to follow the adventures of the Murray children.

L’Engle, Madaleine. 1973. A Wind in the Door. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. ISBN 978-0374384432

L’Engle, Madaleine. 1986. Many Waters. New York: Yearling Books. ISBN 978-0440405481