Miranda is a 6th grader and main character of this combination mystery and science fiction novel that unfolds as cryptic notes begin appearing without any explanation of who they are from, or how the sender knows all about Miranda and her life.
Set in the hustle and bustle of New York City, When You Reach Me is Miranda’s story of her bizarre encounters with notes she finds that she cannot explain and struggles to understand. Miranda tells of the notes and the secrecy that is requested by the author after she unknowingly shares the first note. She tells how the information in the notes is eerily accurate about things, personal things, that pertain specifically to her life.
As if getting cryptic notes isn’t strange enough, Miranda is trying to help her mom prepare to win a game show and is dealing with the loss of her best friend who abruptly stops speaking to her. She is in middle school and faces many of the common challenges that make up the middle school experience of revolving friendships and growing independently. Miranda is practicing to become an independent person while still testing the boundaries of her mother, her teachers, and her friendships. Puzzled by the notes, Miranda is perplexed at the thought of who could possibly be writing to her? It takes a tragedy to put the final pieces together and understand why the note writer knew so much about her. Could these notes really have been from the future? Well, could they?
This book has many possibilities for creating and extending connections in the classroom. Middle school and upper intermediate students will be able to connect to the main character’s angst and relationships with other characters in the story. The mention of the classic novel A Wrinkle in Time provides a great opportunity for comparing and contrasting these two stories. Students will be able to make predictions and build a case to defend their prediction before the truth is finally revealed about who is writing Miranda these notes. In the classroom, the students could read this book together and share their perspective on what they believe is happening. Talking about what they are reading, and listening to how other readers perceive the same text is a valuable tool for developing greater reading comprehension. Some of the clues the author provides about the truth behind the notes are very subtle. It may take take reading, and rereading for students to truly envision how the story is played out. In the end, the wow factor makes the mystery worth sticking around until the end. After reading this book as a class it would be very interesting to ask students to write letters to themselves as though writing from the future, or to encourage them to think about who they would want to write to them from the future.
Ideas for Classroom Incorporation of When You Reach Me:
- ELA: compare and contrast, predictions, classifying genres, point of view, text connections
- WRITING: write a letter to yourself from the future, who would you want to write to you from the future, do you think it is possible to write a letter from the future? Why, or why not?
Mrs. Kinnamore’s Bookshelf 