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When You Reach Me

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When You Reach Me

Written by: Rebecca Stead
Narrated by: Cynthia Holloway
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About this listen

 "Like A Wrinkle in Time (Miranda's favorite book), When You Reach Me far surpasses the usual whodunit or sci-fi adventure to become an incandescent exploration of 'life, death, and the beauty of it all.'" —The Washington Post

This Newbery Medal winner that has been called "smart and mesmerizing," (The New York Times) and "superb" (The Wall Street Journal) will appeal to readers of all types, especially those who are looking for a thought-provoking mystery with a mind-blowing twist.

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.

Winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction
A New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book
Five Starred Reviews
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A PARADE Best Kids Book of All Time
A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of the Century

"Absorbing." —People

"Readers ... are likely to find themselves chewing over the details of this superb and intricate tale long afterward." —The Wall Street Journal

"Lovely and almost impossibly clever." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

"It's easy to imagine readers studying Miranda's story as many times as she's read L'Engle's, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises." —Publishers Weekly, Starred review

©2009 Rebecca Stead; (P)2009 Random House Mysteries Mystery & Suspense Romance Fiction

What the critics say

Winner of the Newbery Medal
A Junior Library Guild Selection
An ALA-ALSC Notable Children’s Book
An ALA-YALSA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults
A best book of the year:
Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Booklist, Indies Choice
Named to Multiple State Award Lists
Five starred reviews


★ "[W]hen all the sidewalk characters from Miranda's Manhattan world converge amid mind-blowing revelations and cunning details, teen readers will circle back to the beginning and say,'Wow ... cool.'" —Kirkus Reviews, Starred review

★ "[T]he mental gymnastics required of readers are invigorating; and the characters, children, and adults are honest bits of humanity no matter in what place or time their souls rest." —Booklist, Starred review

★ "Closing revelations are startling and satisfying but quietly made, their reverberations giving plenty of impetus for the reader to go back to the beginning and catch what was missed." —The Horn Book Magazine, Starred review

★ "This unusual, thought-provoking mystery will appeal to several types of readers." —School Library Journal, Starred review

★ "It's easy to imagine readers studying Miranda's story as many times as she's read L'Engle's, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises." —Publishers Weekly, Starred review

[T]he believable characters and unexpected ending invite readers to ponder the extraordinary that underlies the ordinary in this fictional world and in their own.” —The Washington Post

"Absorbing." —People

"Readers ... are likely to find themselves chewing over the details of this superb and intricate tale long afterward." —The Wall Street Journal

“Incandescent.” —The Washington Post

"Smart and mesmerizing." —The New York Times
All stars
Most Relevant
"It's simple to love someone. It's hard to know when to say it out loud."

I listened to this one as an audiobook so I got a bit of a different experience with this one. I loved that I was able to hear the change in emotions and how the characters grew throughout the book. This was basically an ode to A WRINKLE IN TIME and I loved that book so this one was great to me.

I did think that Miranda sounded a little older than 12 at some times but I think she was still a great character and narrator. It's written in a way that makes it easy to read but there are a lot of complex things in the pages that you don't realize it is only 200 pages long.

I would have liked it to be a little longer or maybe some more details of the friendships and about Miranda's conversations with her friends. I think there could have been more flushed out aspects of the way that Miranda changed. She talks about how she saw herself being mean and wanted to adjust that but then there were only little hints to it rather than how tough it can be to actually do that, especially as a kid.

I would definitely recommend this one to anyone who wants a bit of sci-fi with their middle grade novels. I liked to see the world through Miranda's eyes and wish I could have spent a little more time in her world.

Such a Good Novel

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