At the same time, Miranda juggles school, relationships with her peers, and helping her mom prepare for an upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid, a popular game show hosted by Dick Clark.
When You Reach Me was inspired by a story Stead read about a man suffering from amnesia, by parts of her childhood, and by her favourite book as a kid, A Wrinkle in Time.
Together, they expanded on the initial concepts and published When You Reach Me on July 14, 2009, under Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House.
[2] Upon reading the article, Stead wondered if somehow the man had returned to the past to prevent an accident but lost his memory along the way.
One week after her birthday celebration, Stead went to a writers' conference where the presenter advised attendees to stop thinking and just write.
Throughout the process, Stead helped Lamb understand the complicated concepts in the book and had drafts read by others to make sure "revision hadn't created any holes or contradictions in the plot".
[2] Stead described the novel as a talisman for Miranda;[4] she included it in the first draft and planned to remove it, "because you can't just toss A Wrinkle in Time in there casually".
Keeping this in mind, she reread A Wrinkle in Time through the perspective of different characters, which enabled her to develop new connections and ideas in her own work.
Miranda, Annemarie, and Colin discover a Fred Flintstone bank in the back of the sandwich shop containing two dollar bills folded into triangles.
When the bank is stolen, Jimmy assumes the kids were responsible and fires them (Miranda later discovers that the laughing man stole it).
Miranda finds the fourth note in Richard's shoe and learns that the laughing man traveled from the future, willingly sacrificing himself to save Sal's life.
"[10] Both Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly found that despite the book's science-fiction devices, the setting was still "firmly rooted in reality.
Elli Housden of The Courier-Mail found that Miranda is forced to deal with the fact that Sal seemingly abandons their friendship and ignores her for no apparent reason.
[9] Julie Long from Reading Time noted how the incident forces Miranda to find new friends and become more active in school, where she starts learning the dynamics of that environment.
Miranda previously considered Julia "a competitor for Annemarie's affection, and Alice as the weird kid who waited too long to go to the bathroom."
While writing the novel, Stead hoped to show her sons the time period in which she lived, "send[ing] them on a little time-travel journey of their own".
[6] Laura Miller of The New Yorker found that this lack of independence in today's youth is mainly due to the fact that kids now grow up with adults constantly watching them.
Miller noted how, despite the lower crime rate in current times, the "characters, middle-class middle school students, routinely walk around the Upper West Side by themselves, a rare freedom in today's city.
[19] In When You Reach Me, Marcus helps Miranda realize that the three old ladies from A Wrinkle in Time lied to Meg by promising they would return five minutes before they left.
[7]Roger Sutton from Horn Book Magazine felt that the moment Marcus explains this flaw to Miranda is the first exchange that shows the novel to be complicated and mysterious.
[20] Quattlebaum noted, "The story's structure – an expert interweaving of past, present and future – brilliantly contradicts Miranda's commonsensical belief that the end can't happen before the middle.
She hoped to make the time travel element logical to show that "Miranda wasn't struggling to understand the seeming randomness and infinity of the universe, but learning that her world has value and that people do care about her".
In praise of Cynthia Holloway's performance of Miranda, M.V.P from Horn Book Magazine stated that her tone "emphasized the novel's interpersonal aspects".
The reviewer found it beneficial that the chapter titles were added to the audio, since they seemed to add more detail about the book, but can be easily skipped over when reading.
[28] Julianna M. Helt of The Post Gazette felt that along with the "wonderful sense of middle school dynamics", Stead's depiction of New York City in the 1970s was superb.
Augusta Scattergood of the Christian Science Monitor enjoyed the detailed work: "The beauty of Stead's writing is found in the way she weaves subplots and settings together seamlessly.
"[8] Publishers Weekly added that even the smallest of details—Miranda's name, her strange habits and why she carries A Wrinkle in Time with her—have a reason for their inclusion by the end of the novel.
[12] Stead won the annual Newbery Medal recognizing When You Reach Me as the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children".
[30] Chairwoman of the Newbery committee Katie O'Dell felt that "Every scene, every nuance, every word is vital both to character development and the progression of the mystery that really is going to engage readers and satisfy them".
[32] In 2012, When You Reach Me was ranked number 11 among all-time best children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience.