When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Shortly after a fall-out with her best friend, sixth grader Miranda starts receiving mysterious notes, and she doesn’t know what to do. The notes tell her that she must write a letter–a true story, and that she can’t share her mission with anyone.
It would be easy to ignore the strange messages, except that whoever is leaving them has an uncanny ability to predict the future. If that is the case, then Miranda has a big problem–because the notes tell her that someone is going to die, and she might be too late to stop it.
The Good
The laughing man goes back in time in order to save Miranda’s best friend from dying.
The Bad
Jimmy is racist and doesn’t let Julia come into his sandwich shop because she is African-American. Colin and Miranda kiss.
Ages
Ages 10+ should read this book.
My Take
This book is super confusing! It doesn’t really makes sense until the last few chapters. To summarize it, a boy named Marcus grows up and sees Miranda’s friend Sal get killed by a truck. So when he grows up he learns how to go back in time so that he can kick Sal out of the way of the truck. Then it won’t ever happen. It’s kind of a weird book, but it would be a great one to discuss as a family.
Story line
Characters
Scary stuff
Romance
Weird Creatures
Overall Rating
Review by Kaitlyn