Pearl's Picks for October
Pearl's Picks provides monthly reading suggestions from Nancy Pearl, the most widely known librarian of our time. These richly diverse book suggestions provide great reading experiences for readers of all ages and interests.
When You Reach Me
by Rebecca Stead
Some extraordinary teen fiction has been published recently (E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, for one), and now we have an equally outstanding novel for middle grade readers: Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me. If this doesn't win the Newbery Award, which is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, "to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children," and/or end up high on every critic's best of the year list, I'll be shocked. It's that good. Stead's book is one of those all-too-few-and-far-between novels that you want to reread as soon as you finish it, because you want to be able to see how the author so successfully accomplished all that she set out to do, which is write a fantasy that feels completely real.
In 1979, 12-year-old Miranda and her best friend Sal are savvy New York kids. They know what's safe to do, what places to avoid, and how to deal with the strange and bothersome homeless man on the corner of their street. But when Sal gets attacked — for no discernible reason — by one of their classmates, it's only the first in a series of disturbing events: Miranda's apartment key — carefully hidden — disappears, and she gets the first of a series of disturbing and mysterious notes, all of which have something to do with future events. This first one includes these lines: "I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own."
Even as Miranda tries to figure out what's going on, she has to deal with the realities of day-to-life — her crush on her classmate, Colin, her new friendship with Annemarie, and her dislike of Annemarie's former best friend, Julie. Then there's helping her mother, who is practicing to be a contestant on the television show The $20,000.00 Pyramid, fulfill her dream of winning. All these diverse plot lines come together in a most satisfactory way. Somehow I missed Stead's glowingly reviewed first novel, First Light, but I intend to remedy that situation shortly. Best of all, in addition to its thought-provoking plot and its realistic depiction of pre-teen experiences, When You Reach Me is a wonderful homage to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which is Miranda's favorite book.