Compelling Mystery, Friendship, and Redemption – When You Reach Me – 2010 Newbery Medal Winner

Miranda – the protagonist of the 2010 Newbery medal winner When you reach me – is a twelve year old girl who lives with her single mother in New York City in the 1970s. She is smart, she is funny and she only reads one book: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Her mother, an aspiring lawyer with a keen sense of justice, was forced to drop out of law school when she had Miranda. Now she unhappily works as a paralegal and dreams of winning The $ 20,000 Pyramid game show so she can quit her job.

Miranda has lost her best friend, Sal, who lives in her apartment building. One day as the two of them were walking home from school, a neighborhood boy named Marcus punched Sal, and from that day on Sal seemed to just walk away: he no longer expects to walk with Miranda, and refuses to even look. . her when they collide with each other. In the confusing void left by Sal, Miranda makes new friends with Annemarie, who was recently dumped by her sometimes smug best friend Julia, and Colin, “this little boy who seemed to end up in my class every year” (p. 54) . The three of them get lunchtime jobs together at the local sandwich shop, Jimmy’s, and they hang out over smelly pickle cheese sandwiches.

One day, Miranda finds her apartment mysteriously open after school, and the spare key is missing from its hiding place, making both her and her mother nervous. Soon after, Miranda receives the following mysterious note:

“This is difficult. More difficult than I expected, even with your help. But I have been practicing and my preparations are going well. I come to save your friend’s life and mine. I ask you two favors. First, you must write and send me one. letter. Second, remember to mention the location of your house key. The journey is difficult. I will not be myself when I get to you “(p. 60).

Miranda continues to receive notes like this, four in all, each one as mysterious and enigmatic as the first. The notes pose a mystery for you to unravel: Who is sending the notes? What type of trip is the sender planning to take? Which of Miranda’s friends will be saved? And what about that crazy tramp on the corner who sleeps with his head under the mailbox? These questions, along with the breakup between Miranda and Sal, drive the story.

Many things make this book attractive. The first, of course, is the mystery: the reader is as determined to solve it as Miranda. Stead adds depth to the mystery beyond the mere content of the notes by linking the book to the sci-fi theme of time travel. The most obvious way this theme appears is in conversations Miranda has with certain friends, notably Marcus, a math and physics prodigy who believes time travel is theoretically possible. However, time travel is also woven into the book through Miranda’s attachment to L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, a book in which the protagonist, Meg, travels through time to save the members. of his family. (By the way, Stead says in the acknowledgments that The Angle books captivated her as a child.)

However, despite the compelling mystery, When you reach me it is more deeply about friendship. Specifically, the novel addresses the question of how to hold on to old friendships without suffocating them, and insightfully highlights the stabilizing effect that new friendships can have on the effort to preserve or regain old ones. Although I refrain from elaborating here so as not to spoil the plot, the novel’s narrative reflections on friendship are extremely reflective and resonant. This friendship theme will speak deeply to tweens navigating the often tumultuous social world of high school.

The book is also very smart. For example, as I already noted, Miranda’s mother wants to win at The $ 20,000 Pyramid. The final part of the game show is called “Winners Circle”, in which a set of objects is described to the contestant and asked to tell which category the objects belong to. For example, if the objects were “a tube of toothpaste, someone’s hand”, the contestant would say “things you squeeze” (p. 39). Stead cleverly titles most of the book’s chapters with categories like that, such as “Things you keep in a box,” “Things that are missing,” and “Things you hide.” And indeed, Stead places objects in each chapter that fit into these headline categories. After a while, it became an extra fun game to find out what the “things that smell” or “things that kick” were in the chapter I was reading.

In addition to these factors that give When you reach me Subjective appeal, the book is developmentally valuable to young readers. In particular, the book communicates hopeful positive messages on some of life’s most important topics. Indeed, it seems to be part of Stead’s explicit purpose to lift, for a moment, the “veil” that generally hides “the world as it really is”, in all its “beauty, cruelty, sadness and love.” (P. 71 ). In other words, part of Stead’s goal is to inspire honest but hopeful reflection on some of the things that matter most in life.

Stead’s elevation of the value of friendship is perhaps the most important and striking example of what makes this book good for tweens. His focus on the profound importance of friendship is a welcome counterweight to the shallow and malicious social culture typical of high school.

The possibility of redemption is another valuable development theme that Stead explores in the novel. For example, the book is based on second chances for Miranda’s mother, both vocationally and relationally. Similarly, Miranda has a redemptive conversion in the way she views and treats her classmates Julia and Alice Evans. Whereas before I saw Julia simply as a competitor for Annemarie’s affection, and Alice as the weird girl who waited too long to go to the bathroom, towards the end of the book, Miranda’s veil is suddenly removed, revealing Julia as the faithful one. friend of Annemarie, and Alice. like an insecure stranger. This idea gives Miranda a new compassion and kindness towards both of them.

In sum, When you reach me is a fantastic book for children ages nine and up. Not only does it involve interesting topics bundled together in a compelling mystery, but it elevates friendship and redemption and thus fosters the right kind of values ​​in tweens.