When You Reach Me

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead is a "Wrinkle in Time" type middle grade novel. It's set in New York City in the 1970s. A girl named Miranda finds herself in the middle of a mystery after her friend gets punch, her apartment key gets stolen, and strange notes, written to her, start arriving. The author of the notes knows specific things about Miranda that no stranger should know. Miranda is scared, but she tries to get to the bottom of the mystery on her own.


This book is great! It won the Newberry Award in 2009. I read the first chapter over again after I finished the last chapter because all the answers were planted there for the reader at the very start. I love books like that. A Wrinkle in Time, one of my all-time-favorite books, is cleverly sewn throughout the plot. I loved it.


I recommend this book and A Wrinkle in Time for fourth -sixth grade students.