When You Reach Me
- Eloi Bronze Medal
- by Rebecca Stead
- Novel
- Science Fiction
- Children
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books, July 2009).
Miranda has an odd friend named Marcus who knows a lot about time machines, another friend named Sal who has stopped hanging out with her, and a man—not really a friend—who sleeps under the mailbox out front. And then there are those mysterious notes from someone who seems to know quite a lot, but also needs her to write about everything that’s happening in her twelve-year-old life.
—Michael Main
So if they had gotten home five minutes before they left, like those ladies promised they would, then they would have seen themselves get back. Before they left.
Tags
(10)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 1970 to 1999: 1978 to 1979
- Circa AD 2000 to 2099: Old Marcus is from the 21st century.
- Timeline Models
- Single Consistent Timeline: When Marcus tells the problems with A Wrinkle in Time and explains how time travel works, he is talking of a single static timeline.
- Time Travel Methods
- Themes
- Causal Loops: For example, one of the notes asks Miranda to tell where the key is to her front door. So she writes this information in her letter, which Marcus reads, which allows him to leave the note that asks her to tell where the key is.
- Fix Your Own Past!: Marcus travels through time to prevent Sal from being hit in the street. The interesting thing is that this is what always happens: There is no timeline where Sal actually is hit.
- Letters, Texts, Phone Calls, Talking, and Other Direct Communications through Time: Marcus brought the letters through time in his mouth.
- Nude Travel: “You said you couldn’t carry anything, and I guess that includes clothes.”
- Time Travel Sickness, Injuries, and Mixed-Up Body Parts: “The trip is a difficult one, and I must ask my favors while my mind is sound.”
- Real-World Tags
Variants
(1)
- When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books, July 2009).