# When You Reach Me

**Author:** Rebecca Stead
**Lexile:** 750L
**Grade range:** Grades 4–8
**Age range:** 9–13
**First published:** 2009
**Page count:** 199
**Genre:** Middle Grade Mystery / Speculative
**ISBN-13:** `9780375850868`
**ISBN-10:** `0375850864`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/when-you-reach-me
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Miranda, a sixth grader in 1979 NYC, receives mysterious notes from someone who seems to know the future. Stead's 2010 Newbery Medal winner intertwines Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time with a New York coming-of-age story and is widely assigned in 5-7 grade for its layered time-puzzle structure.

## Themes

- time travel (speculative)
- friendship
- 1970s NYC
- mystery
- metanarrative

## Content notes

- off-page injury
- mild peril

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 10+

## Where this book is assigned

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 5th grade — [source: CCSS ELA grades 4-5 Newbery Medal 2010](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 6th grade — [source: CCSS ELA grades 6-8 mystery exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **recommended** · 6th grade · New York — [source: NY Next Gen Standards grade 6 — NYC-set Newbery](https://www.nysed.gov/)

---

_Generated from primary-source citations indexed on ReadingList.school. For the full HTML view with reading-list cross-references, see https://readinglist.school/book/when-you-reach-me._