Comments on: When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:59:39 +0000

Diane, I’m a teacher — I’m not going to do your homework for you! But you can do this yourself if you read the book thoughtfully. A hint: think about some of the objects on the cover. Could any of them symbolize anything interesting?

By: Diane

Diane — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:47:28 +0000

i need some symbols from the book for a project…. around five.

By: When You Reach Me wins the Newbery! Squeeee!

When You Reach Me wins the Newbery! Squeeee! — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:04:25 +0000

[...] Newbery Medal for children’s lit: When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (eeee!!!) Michael L. Printz Award for YA lit: Going Bovine, by Libba [...]

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:57:44 +0000

Ms. Yingling:

I think it’s really really great and worth owning. That said, I’m not sure how much press it’s getting among kids. I’ve had to hand-sell it, which will be much harder if you didn’t like it yourself!

(Why do you think The Underneath is similar? I haven’t read it — it seems pitched younger than my students — but it doesn’t sound particularly comparable to me.)

By: Ms. Yingling

Ms. Yingling — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:52:45 +0000

I’m going to have to buy this, aren’t I? It read like something that would have been published when I was 12, and I felt decidedly “meh” about it, but it’s gotten so much press. That said, no one has checked out The Underneath, so maybe I should pass!

By: rebecca

rebecca — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:41:26 +0000

Oh hells yes, I definitely agree about the tiredness of “skin like chocolate,” “skin like coffee,” etc. I wish I heard the snarkiness here as being directed at that tradition rather than being directed at Julia personally. And I wish I saw Miranda eventually getting this clue later. But I’m glad to hear another way of reading it.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:35:25 +0000

And I can completely see feeling that way about it. I wrestled a lot with whether it was ok for me to like it as much as I did. But ultimately, I saw it as an effectively memorable scene that’s part of Miranda’s growth. So much of the book is about her journey to understanding that people have their own brains and emotions and needs (which I don’t say to imply that she’s unusually selfish, just that she’s at an age where self-absorption is developmentally appropriate). This struck me as part of that — she snarks about this memory of Julia, but ends up closer to getting it by the end.

(And, I’ll admit, I loved it because I’m so tired of the cliche of using food-themed descriptions to delicately indicate a character’s race.)

By: rebecca

rebecca — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:22:28 +0000

Wow, I deeply wish I agreed about that scene. I am very uncomfortable with how the text handled that scene. In my opinion, the text (through Miranda’s eyes) mocks Julia for wanting a shade of brown that matches her own skin, mocking the idea that such a thing could possibly be important and that there’s any reason to get upset about it. It uses that particular complaint to show that Julia is spoiled. And even though later we learn to like Julia, and even though Miranda once later uses the term “cafe au lait” in positive way, I never recovered from the text’s original use of “wanting a shade of brown that matches her skin” as a a symbol of unreasonableness. It didn’t actively rescind that equation, and that’s not okay with me.