Title: When You Reach Me
Author: Rebecca Stead
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books
Reading Level: 9-12 years old
Lexile Score: 750L
Suggested Delivery: Read aloud or independent read
Words to describe this book: Edgy, funny, adventurous, futuristic, exhilarating
Summary: One day, while Miranda is walking home from school , something strange happens. Her best friend, Sal, randomly gets hit in the stomach by one of the neighborhood boys. After this occurrence, Miranda begins to receive mysterious notes from an unknown person. In the first note she finds, the person writes, "I am coming to save your friends life, and my own." Miranda can't help but wonder who this person is and what friends need to be saved? The twists and turns in this book will keep you on the edge of your seat!
Key Vocabulary
Before Reading Activity:
Electronic Resources:
Einstein's Time Travel Theory
This video is about the theory of time travel. This builds on students background knowledge to help make the read more enjoyable and understandable. It can be used as a pre or post activity.
Interview with Rebecca Stead
This is an interview with Rebecca Stead about her purpose for writing this novel. She discusses how she came about writing the story and what intrigued her. This would be an excellent post activity to help students connect the text to the author's intentions.
Writing Activity: Have students write a letter to their future selves. What would they want to remember? What do they imagine themselves doing in ten or twenty years from now? What do they hope to accomplish? Have the students seal their letters in envelopes.
Author: Rebecca Stead
Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books
Reading Level: 9-12 years old
Lexile Score: 750L
Suggested Delivery: Read aloud or independent read
Words to describe this book: Edgy, funny, adventurous, futuristic, exhilarating
Summary: One day, while Miranda is walking home from school , something strange happens. Her best friend, Sal, randomly gets hit in the stomach by one of the neighborhood boys. After this occurrence, Miranda begins to receive mysterious notes from an unknown person. In the first note she finds, the person writes, "I am coming to save your friends life, and my own." Miranda can't help but wonder who this person is and what friends need to be saved? The twists and turns in this book will keep you on the edge of your seat!
Key Vocabulary
- Time travel - traveling through time in the past or future
- Truce - an agreement between enemies or opponents to stop fighting
- Epilepsy - a medical condition which causes seizures
- Justification - showing something to be correct or reasonable
- Omen - a sign of something to come
- Scoured - to search thoroughly
Before Reading Activity:
- Use the text impressions strategy - present vocabulary found in the novel to students to predict what the book will be about (use words such as time travel, truce, omen)
- Have students stop reading at Chapter Six. The author gives context clues of who the person sending Miranda letters may be. Based on the clues, have students make a prediction of who the mystery person is. How does he/she know Miranda? What story does he/she want Miranda to tell?
- In the novel, Miranda is explained how time travel works by comparing it to a diamond ring. Have students create their own representation of time travel. Why did they choose their representation and how does it connect to the text?
Electronic Resources:
Einstein's Time Travel Theory
This video is about the theory of time travel. This builds on students background knowledge to help make the read more enjoyable and understandable. It can be used as a pre or post activity.
Interview with Rebecca Stead
This is an interview with Rebecca Stead about her purpose for writing this novel. She discusses how she came about writing the story and what intrigued her. This would be an excellent post activity to help students connect the text to the author's intentions.
Writing Activity: Have students write a letter to their future selves. What would they want to remember? What do they imagine themselves doing in ten or twenty years from now? What do they hope to accomplish? Have the students seal their letters in envelopes.