In When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead creates a near epistolary story that addresses the reader in 2nd person. Presumably, the work is a letter explaining the occurrences leading up to the time travel of a character that will save the protagonist Miranda and her friend Sal.
Genre Conventions- Stead creates a mystery, we are set on the path of figuring out who is leaving the notes for Miranda, and what has happened. Early in the book several questions leave readers to question where the path might be going:
- Is the person saving her mother from some thievery/ embezzlement at the law firm?
- Why did Marcus hit Sal?
- Why did Sal stop being friends with Miranda?
- Who is leaving the letters?
- Why did the laughing man show up?
- Who is this naked guy?
- Who is at risk to die:
- Sal because he is walking home alone?
- Annemarie because she isn't following her diet?
- Who broke in the house?
- Who stole Jimmy's Piggy Bank?
The Mystery/ Adventure convention relies on the audiences need to be challenged, and surprised. It is born from boredom and a lack of intellect. We must as readers challenge ourselves to decode the clues to solve the problem.
Stead also relies on the established genre of science fiction to question the possibility of time travel. The audience must accept the possibility of time travel to understand the ramifications of "saving" a life from beyond. While Stead doesn't go into the mechanics of how the time travel would occur, she relies on the Intertextual Reference of A Wrinkle in Time, to show the possibility of time travel. There is a conversation that is ongoing between Miranda and Marcus (and then Julia), about the book and time travel as a possibility. The discussion is brief, but a diffinitive lead in to the conversation is below:
The the reveal is made when Miranda, Marcus and Julia discuss the possibility that the person might not even recognize himself/herself, if they saw their grown up self return. This raises the obvious question: Who is the laughing man? We are pretty sure he is the time traveler-- since he is the "something different," that occurred.
Is he Sal?
Marcus?
Richard?
Jimmy
Colin?
Is he Sal?
Marcus?
Richard?
Jimmy
Colin?
The importance of issues in children's lit
One of the things I particularly loved about this book, is the way in which Miranda starts considering things around her. She doesn't like her mother's stealing, and seems concerned about her mother. Miranda doesn't like Julia- but never intended her "nickname" to be a racial slur. However, that is how it was perceived.
Miranda does what children do every day, deal with their problems on their own. She doesn't find an adult to fix them for her. As a parent, I would like to think if my children needed me they would come to me. I would like to think if given a grave or confusing situation, I would be the person they depended on. I am however, not naive to the fact that part of childhood is learning the answers on your own and that adolescence is confusing. While it is sort of against the "hover mother" mentality I have instinctively fallen into, I know children must be empowered to "figure things out." For me, literary adventures help build the conversation, that create for children answers to how they would think through a problem on their own. You know, since I am not ready to go full blown, free-range parent.
The clearest message of empowerment is when Miranda decides to change the way that she has been, to chose to be kind, that things line up for her.
Sometimes you never feel meaner than the moment you stop being mean. It's like how turning on a light makes you realize how dark the room had gotten.
Miranda realizes that while she hadn't teased and tortured the bullied girl, Alice, she also had never tried to help her. What an important message for our kids! We obsess about bullies in our society- but this was a practical way to show, how a child could make someone's situation easier without risking being bullied themselves.