When You Reach Me is a Newbery Medal-winning science fiction and mystery novel by Rebecca Stead, published in 2009. It takes place on the Upper West Side of Manhattan during 1978 and 1979 and follows a sixth-grade girl named Miranda Sinclair. After Miranda finds a strange note, which is unsigned and addressed only to "M," in her school library book, a mystery is set into motion—one which Miranda ultimately must face alone. At the same time, Miranda juggles school, relationships with her peers, and helping her mom prepare for an upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid, a popular game show hosted by Dick Clark. Important characters in the story include Miranda's mother; Richard, her mom's good-natured boyfriend; Sal, Miranda's childhood best friend; and a homeless man who lives on Miranda's block and is referred to only as "the laughing man." Central themes in the novel include independence, redemption, and friendship.
When You Reach Me was inspired by a story Stead read about a man suffering from amnesia, by parts of her childhood, and by her favourite book as a kid, A Wrinkle in Time. After completing much of the novel, Stead gave the draft to her editor, Wendy Lamb. Together, they expanded on the initial concepts and published When You Reach Me on July 14, 2009, under Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House. The book was well received by critics, who praised its realistic setting and the author's deft handling of small details. The novel reached the best-seller lists of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. In addition to receiving the 2010 Newbery Medal, When You Reach Me won several Best Book of the Year awards.
Concept and development Stead began writing When You Reach Me in 2007 after an article in The New York Times gave her an idea for a novel about traveling in time to save someone's life. The article was about a man who woke up in Denver suffering from amnesia, having forgotten who he was or why he was there. Many people worked with the man to help him regain his memory. Under hypnosis, he spoke about his apparent wife, Penny, and two daughters who died in a car crash. However, when he and Penny were reunited, the man found out she was only his fiancée — and they had no children. Upon reading the article, Stead wondered if somehow the man had returned to the past to prevent an accident but lost his memory along the way.
"All along, the goal was to be certain that the logic would stand up to the merciless scrutiny of a smart kid. Someone might finish the book and then go right back and start again, reading so closely that she or he would spot any inconsistency. We didn't want to let the reader down."— Editor Wendy Lamb
While the news story initially inspired Stead, she also tied in parts of her childhood into the novel. She was reminded of a strange old man, dubbed the "laughing man," who lived near her apartment as a child. Besides the laughing man, she included her elementary school, her apartment and a sandwich store where she used to work. Stead also added memories of herself acting mean without reason. Slowly the novel became "more and more about these ordinary mysteries of life and less about the fantastic time-travel-y one".
After developing the basic idea, Stead began researching the science behind time travel to make sure her ideas would be logical. She asked her father — who enjoyed mathematical puzzles — for help with the science and complicated technical aspects. As they talked about time travel, Stead "just kept falling into the same hole with the logic, and he really helped me straighten it out".
When Stead was only halfway done, she hit a wall: she wondered if she had focused the novel too much on her own personal life and problems. By her 40th birthday in January 2007, she had stopped writing. One week after her birthday celebration, Stead went to a writers' conference where the presenter advised attendees to stop thinking and just write. This speech worked as an antidote to Stead's writer's block; she started working on When You Reach Me again. After she had written two-thirds of the novel, Stead sent the draft to her editor Wendy Lamb at Random House. Perusing the script, Lamb found herself absorbed and wanted to help develop the book. Unlike Stead's debut novel First Light, which Lamb heavily edited, Lamb modified nothing on the first draft of When You Reach Me. Throughout the process, Stead helped Lamb understand the complicated concepts in the book and had drafts read by others to make sure "revision hadn't created any holes or contradictions in the plot".
A Wrinkle in Time Throughout the story, the main character Miranda is often reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, Stead's favorite book as a child; she read and reread it multiple times. She recalls that L'Engle was the only author she met in her childhood. Stead described the novel as a talisman for Miranda; she included it in the first draft and planned to remove it, "because you can't just toss A Wrinkle in Time in there casually". Her editor suggested leaving it in if it could be better tied into the story. Stead was aware that she did not want A Wrinkle in Time to have too big an influence on When You Reach Me. Keeping this in mind, she reread A Wrinkle in Time through the perspective of different characters, which enabled her to develop new connections and ideas in her own work.
Setting When You Reach Me takes place during the 1978–1979 school year of Miranda, the main character. Stead placed Miranda's home on the Upper West Side where Stead grew up. Many parts of the novel explore "the same streets where Stead grew up, and riffs on some of her experiences". Stead was inspired to use this setting because she moved into an apartment near her childhood home early in the development of the story. There she had experienced her first independence while exploring the streets, only to find a scary man (the "laughing man") near her apartment house. Wondering why he was there, Stead later used this encounter as "the anchor as she wrote When You Reach Me".
Plot M,
This is hard. Harder than I expected, even with your help. But I have been practicing, and my preparations go well. I am coming to save your friend's life and my own.
I ask two favors.
First, you must write me a letter,
Second, please remember to mention the location of your house key.
The trip is a difficult one. I will not be myself when I reach you.— The first note Miranda receives
Sixth grader Miranda lives with her single mother. When Miranda's mom is invited to appear on the game show $20,000 Pyramid, Miranda and her mom's boyfriend, Richard, begin preparing her for the show in the hopes that she will win and be able to afford a better life. Miranda's best friend Sal, whom she has known since childhood, has recently begun ignoring Miranda after being punched in the stomach by another boy, Marcus.
A homeless man lives on the corner of Miranda's street, dubbed the "laughing man" for his tendency to laugh without cause.
Miranda receives a series of mysterious notes instructing her to write a letter describing future events. The notes, whose writer claims to be coming to Miranda's time to save a life, predict the truth as proof. As these proofs come true, Miranda is intrigued.
Miranda and her new friends Annemarie and Colin hope to get a job at a sandwich shop on the corner. The owner, Jimmy, agrees, but gives them a free soda and sandwich every day in lieu of paying them with money. Miranda, Annemarie, and Colin discover a Fred Flintstone bank in the back of the sandwich shop containing two-dollar bills folded into triangles. When the bank is stolen, Jimmy assumes the kids were responsible and fires them (Miranda later discovers that the laughing man stole it). He re-hires them after they convince him of their innocence, but Annemarie quits when Jimmy says he suspects her best friend, Julia, of stealing the bank because Julia is African-American.
One day, Annemarie suffers a seizure. Julia berates Miranda for letting Annemarie eat sandwiches and drink soda, revealing that Annemarie is epileptic and has to eat a special diet, previously unbeknownst to Miranda. Colin invites Miranda to hang out, but she declines, claiming her mom is sick. Colin later comes to visit Miranda, whereupon they share a kiss before he runs off.
One day, Marcus (with whom Miranda is now friends) confronts Sal, wanting to apologize for his earlier behavior. Marcus chases Sal when he flees, resulting in the latter running directly into the path of an oncoming truck. Before the truck can hit Sal, the laughing man kicks Sal out of the way, and in turn is fatally hit by the truck. Miranda finds the fourth note in Richard's shoe and learns that the laughing man traveled from the future, willingly sacrificing himself to save Sal's life. The note asks Miranda to prepare a chronicle of recent events and deliver it by hand, but she does not know to whom she should deliver them. While Sal is in the hospital recovering from his injuries, Miranda visits him and they reconcile.
While her mother is on-stage on the $20,000 Pyramid, Miranda reminisces about an earlier conversation with Marcus about how no one would recognize a time-traveler from a different age. She suddenly realizes that the laughing man is an older incarnation of Marcus, and needed to deliver the notes to his younger self through Miranda. Later on, Miranda goes to the mailbox the laughing man slept under, where she finds a picture of an older Julia smiling happily. The novel ends as Miranda gives Marcus the letter as the laughing man instructed her in his letters.
Genres When You Reach Me is classified in the science fiction and mystery genres, but includes features of some other genres. Monica Edinger of The New York Times found When You Reach Me to be "a hybrid of genres, it is a complex mystery, a work of historical fiction, a school story and one of friendship, with a leitmotif of time travel running through it." Augusta Scattergood of the Christian Science Monitor wondered, "Is When You Reach Me science fiction? Time travel? A highly imaginative girl's completely conceived experience? Maybe it's historical fiction. After all, it is set in 1979." According to Mary Quattlebaum of The Washington Post, the novel is of the science fiction and time travel genres. Quattlebaum found that, unlike the usual time travel stories, When You Reach Me does not involve "cheesy time travel machines and rock-'em-sock-'em action [but instead] far surpasses the usual whodunit or sci-fi adventure to become an incandescent exploration of 'life, death, and the beauty of it all.' " Both Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly found that despite the book's science-fiction devices, the setting was still "firmly rooted in reality." Retrieved November 2, 2010.Retrieved October 31, 2010.
Some have placed parts of the novel in the mystery genre. Edinger found that, despite the broad genres, the novel is mainly "a thrilling puzzle". She relates the pieces slowly; clues are found in the story itself, on the map, in words and chapter titles. At the end of the book everything is tied together and makes sense. Ann Crewdson of School Library Journal found that each note Miranda receives foreshadows the next event. Each note is "skillfully" integrated into the novel, along with subsequent clues, until the climax is reached and all the clues come together. Retrieved November 2, 2010. Stead's editor Lamb agreed with the mystery genre, in that "there's plenty to wonder about after you finish the book. Just as we wonder why our feelings change so suddenly, or why someone like the laughing man appears on the corner one day." Gurdon of The Wall Street Journal concurred with Lamb, adding that although the novel is clearly a mystery, the mystery itself is not revealed until the end where the last note comes and where everything ties together.
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