There it is, in your tiny handwriting: April 27th: Studio TV-15, the words all jerky-looking, like you wrote them on the subway. I check the box under my bed, which is where I’ve kept your notes these past few months. It says Congratulations in big curly letters, and at the very top is the address of Studio TV-15 on West 58th Street… She’s going to be a contestant on The $20,000 Pyramid… And then there’s the date she’s supposed to show up, scrawled in blue pen on a line at the bottom of the card: April 27, 1979. It is written in first person from the point of view of 12-year-old Miranda to someone who is unknown. There is something unusual about this book that the reader notices from the first page. Or maybe it took a year of reading 50+ middle grade time travel books that don’t have what this one does–a plot that kept me on the edge of my seat, heartwarming depictions of different kinds of friendships and families, and the nostalgia-soaked setting of NYC in the the late 70’s –to allow me to fully appreciate it. This book lends itself to being read twice. I never read mysteries and I was not able to put the pieces together as quickly as I thought I should. Surprisingly, I didn’t fall in love with When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead (2009, 197 pages) the first time I read it a few years ago.
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