This book is very good. It was definitley a different book, with characters I found somewhat hard to understand. I could see the story happening before my eyes, even though some parts were really boring and stretched out. When You Reach Me is a good book, one worth reading, but not one of my personal favourites.

Reason for Reading: I'm working my way through reviewing all the Newbery winners. Miranda has been best friends with Sal since they were in diapers, but one day Sal gets punched walking home from school and their friendship ends. Miranda starts running into the boy who punched him, Marcus, and they become acquaintances. Miranda loves the book A Wrinkle in Time and reads it over and over and over. Nobody can get her to try a different book and Marcus starts talking to her about the science behind the time-space travel component of the book. On Miranda's block there is a strange homeless man who talks about strange things, yells things out, talks to her, calls her "smart girl" and every now and then kicks his leg out into the street. He also sleeps with his head wedged under a mailbox. Oh, and Miranda also receives strange messages from an unknown person asking her to do things but most specifically to write the sender a letter. It isn't until the end of the book that all these elements come together and make perfect sense to Miranda. An enjoyable book. The science fiction element is light and comes into play towards the end to explain all the strange events. The book also explores friendships as Miranda has relationships with a boy she's known from being a baby, a bully, a friendly neighbourhood woman, a crotchety old man, a girl who is made fun of at school, and a girl who has been dumped by the snooty popular girl, as well as the snooty girl herself. All of these people at some point Miranda befriends and she learns a lot about how appearances can be deceiving and to get to know the inside person before making judgments. Though sometimes a person's true self can a disappointment. I thought the story was well-written, the characters likable and interesting. I read the book quickly and thought the ending was clever. The story never went past good, fine or ok with me though. From a Newbery winner I expect more.

I love Madeleine L'Engle and her book A Wrinkle In Time. This book makes numerous references to both. When I met Madeleine L'Engle at a conference a few years ago she stated that her characters are alive to her, and every now and again she will realize something new happened in their life. This book has that feel; as I read it, and even after finishing, I found myself thinking about the characters - where they are now, what they are up to. I think L'Engle would have loved that about this book. The story takes place in a very small geographic region in New York City, focusing around a 6th grade girl Miranda, her friends and family. She finds a note indicating that the author is trying to save her friend's life and their own life. The author of the note indicates that they know the future and give her dates and times of events yet to happen to prove they are telling the truth. What they are asking for in return is that Miranda tells them her story, specifically that she write it out and when the time comes she will know who to give it to. The story is wonderfully written from Miranda's perspective, looking back on the past few months. It is about lifting the veil between what we perceive and what is real, what is actual and what is possible. It is about the potential in humans for growth and change. C.S. Lewis stated "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." This book helps to wipe some of the dirt and grime off the glass and allows us to see a little more clearly. Yes it is true the story became predictable, especially for a fan of L'Engle, but the way it happens still makes it worth reading. It is a wonderful book - a book about hope, a book about change and a book about coming into yourself. If Stead's writings continue to ask questions like this one, does she have the potential to become a favourite author of mine, and maybe even a legend like L'Engle?

Over the weekend, I curled with Rebecca Stead’s Newbery Medal winning book WHEN YOU REACH ME and found it enchanting and completely delightful. Like last year’s winner, Neil Gaiman’s THE GRAVEYARD BOOK which alluded to Kipling’s THE JUNGLE BOOK, Stead writes in the tradition of Madeleine L’Engle’s A WRINKLE IN TIME. For it is twelve-year-old Melinda’s favourite book. Like a security blanket, she carries her battered copy everywhere she goes. Considering that she is no longer speaking to her best friend Sal and there are strange people lurking under mailboxes, it is no wonder that she needs something familiar close by. I don’t want to tell you the plot or the premise of this novel, because I think it will give pieces of it away. Instead, I will convey to you how this story is told. This is a story to be read without a full understanding of what is happening, because watching it unfold is part of the joy. Melinda is telling us a story, but the story itself isn’t directed at us, but at someone who has asked her to write him a letter of the events that had led up to a particular moment in time. So, Melinda takes us back to the moment where she felt like everything changed and by telling her story shows that seemingly insignificant people and events are sometimes more significant than we are aware. And that if we are lucky, we can see when the veil of time and space is lifted and how everything interconnects with everything else. I recommend this for anyone who enjoyed THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX because it has the same kind of depth that that novel had while still being an easy read. Stead’s use of L’Engle’s classic will not only bring a new generation of readers to the Time Quartet Series, but inspire and older ones to return to that wrinkle in time when we read a book that helped us understand ourselves and the world a little better.