Title: When You Reach Me
Author: Rebecca Stead
Genre: Fiction
Ages: High School
Summary: This book is a little girls story that she is trying to tell with a mystery attached. Someone is watching her and leaving her notes, but we follow her throughout the story as we figure out what or who is following her.
About the author: Rebecca Stead is a former attorney who lives in Manhattan with her husband and two children. She has published two books for children and teens, First Light (2007) and When You Reach Me (2009).
Theme/Skill: family/friends/growing up
Pre-reading activity: Write a paragraph about your neighborhood. What do you see? Who do you see? Do you feel safe?
Post-reading activity: Draw a display of the things that you see on your way to and from school every day.
This seems like a good book to have in a high school classroom, and the mystery would make it hard for me to put down. Though it may have a few scarier aspects--such as feeling safe in your neighborhood, I think it would be good for high schoolers and all students really to take a second look at their own safety and to know their surroundings inside and out. I would probably use this book as a read aloud for as early as middle school ( as long as the material was appropriate?) to teach about safety as early as possible. I'll have to add this one to my library.
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