A LoveReading4kids 'Great Read' you may have missed 2011 selection. Winner of the 2010 Newbery Medal, shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2011.
This is a brilliantly fresh and original story with a puzzle at its heart. When Miranda’s best friend Sal is punched in the stomach by another boy for no apparent reason everything begins to unravel. Where the threads lead and how Miranda follows them is beautifully and simply told despite the fact that the story they tell is complex and thought-provoking. This is a great book.
"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
"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
'..a well-written and engaging read.. a story in which characters really come alive during those few months we spend with them' - Philip Ardagh in The Guardian
Author
About Rebecca Stead
Rebecca Stead is an American author who writes books for children and young adults. She won the 2010 Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children's literature for her second novel, When You Reach Me. Stead enjoyed writing as a child, but as she grew older she felt it was 'impractical' and became a lawyer instead. After years as a public defender she returned to writing after the birth of her two children.
On her website she credits her son with inspiring her to write a children's novel, but not in the way one would expect. For years she had collected story ideas and short stories on a laptop, which the child pushed off a table, destroying it and losing all her 'serious' writing. As a way to lighten her mood she began again with something light-hearted. The creation of First Light followed.
