Who is sending them? Were they written in the past? Or could they come from the future? Miranda wants to know how the sender knows her and even more, how her response could possibly save a friend’s life. She starts to find notes: unsigned notes left in strange places eerie notes that seem to predict the future clear notes with specific instructions expressly for her. In the way of what’s true.” 3 And with that the stage is set for the author’s shifting use of verb tenses, and time travel for Miranda begins. She insists that common sense says this cannot happen he counters with Einstein’s thinking that “common sense is just habit of thought, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way. Miranda’s favorite book is A Wrinkle in Time, and she discusses with Marcus, a sixth grader at her school, the idea of arriving somewhere sooner than when you left. What was a familiar story form shifts to speculative fiction.

Before the reader is fully settled into the protagonist Miranda’s tale, the author introduces a sort of homage to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time by adding a similar time travel element to Miranda’s world. On the surface the book seems like yet another tale of friendship, but what begins as a school story fast becomes a quirky mixture of story types: part mystery, part historical fiction, and part fantasy-a complicated hybrid that is difficult to adequately summarize in a few paragraphs. Stead set this novel for middle-grade readers (ages 8–12) in the late 1970s in a small section of a New York neighborhood at Miranda’s apartment building and in her school, at Belle’s Market and Jimmy’s Deli, and on the street corner where the mailbox stands. Whether the same accolades will come from children remains to be seen.

According to the publisher’s website 2 the book has received sixteen additional awards (as of April 2010), primarily in the categories of recommended or best books of the year, and all-it should be noted-from the adult perspective of what children will or should like. The author-a New York lawyer turned children’s writer-has struck commendation gold with this her second novel. When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead is the 2010 Newbery Award Winner 1. (Note: It is not the purpose of this review to draw conclusions for the reader but rather to focus on literary elements and topics of critical importance.)

When you reach me notes