When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

For those of you who like puzzles:

When You Reach Me
By Rebecca Stead

Twelve-year-old Miranda thinks she knows what common sense is. After all, she’s lived in New York City all her life and has never found herself in any sort of sticky situation, not even with the crazy guy on the street corner or neighborhood boys who are always stirring up trouble.

Then Miranda begins to receive strange notes from someone who seems to possess the impossible ability to foretell the future. Logical Miranda knows this can’t be true, even though her favorite piece of fiction is indeed A Wrinkle in Time. But not long after the notes begin to arrive, a mysterious boy at school challenges her perception of what is possible. Things in the notes begin to happen. The boy argues that her ‘common sense’ is just getting in the way of the truth: Miraculous things are occurring, if only she can allow her eyes to see them.

But Time is running out. The notes keep coming, and getting increasingly urgent and leading Miranda to believe that something terrible will happen if she doesn’t act fast. Utterly imaginative and simultaneously true to life, this book will have you piecing together the puzzle right alongside Miranda.

Reviewed by Natalie