![]() ![]() The heroine of When You Reach Me is Miranda, a 12-year-old self-proclaimed “latchkey kid” who leads a relatively uncomplicated life with her divorced mother in a rundown apartment on the Upper West Side. It’s a story that takes on big ideas about the nature of time, friendship, compassion, and sacrifice, while still - at its heart - giving kids access to the wonder, doubts, and worries of someone their age. Like A Wrinkle in Time before it, When You Reach Me never condescends to its audience. She “tessers” to the 1970s Manhattan of her youth, tapping into her childhood emotions and experiences to create a page-turning blend of mystery and science fiction. ![]() And in When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead proves herself to be a virtuoso time traveler. It’s also a description of what takes place whenever we read and write. Stead unlocked the secret to L’Engle’s advice: “tessering” - taking shortcuts through time and space - isn’t just a fantastical concept that exists between the pages of A Wrinkle in Time. ![]() “For Rebecca,” the Newbery award-winning author wrote, “Tesser Well.” In 2010, that same ardent fan - author Rebecca Stead - would find herself standing at a podium in a Washington, DC, ballroom accepting her own Newbery for When You Reach Me, her elegantly crafted, evocative middle-grade novel that doubles as a tribute to A Wrinkle in Time. ![]() IN 1979, A SHY 11-YEAR-OLD brought her well-worn copy of A Wrinkle in Time to a Manhattan bookstore for Madeline L’Engle to sign. ![]()
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