When You Reach Me

Rebecca Stead just won the Newbery Medal for her children’s novel When You Reach Me. Stead tells Kurt how she based her heroine, a sixth-grader named Miranda, on her own latchkey childhood in gritty 1970s New York City. There’s a time travel twist to the plot too: when Miranda receives anonymous notes instructing her on how to change events that haven’t happened yet, her mom’s “rules for life in New York City” can only protect her so far.