A Wrinkle in Time
When You Reach Me is a deeply intertextual book. That means When You Reach Me often refers to other books and depends upon those other books to help it make meaning – kind of like a book having a...
Clocks and Watches
Since time and time travel are important themes in When You Reach Me, we end up seeing plenty of images of watches and clocks. Time becomes three-dimensional. It's everywhere in the novel. There's...
Keys
If you were to make a list of all the keys in this novel, we bet it'd end up being a mighty long list. Talk about imagery overload. Miranda is a latchkey kid, so she's always carrying around a key...
Knots
In Chapter 6 we learn that Richard, who sailed ships when he was a kid, loves to tie sailing knots. He teaches Miranda how to do the same and even buys her a set of ropes for Christmas one year.Ric...
Dick Clark
It's long been a joke in pop culture that television star Dick Clark never, ever ages. Louisa makes a similar observation while sitting in the studio audience of $20,00 Pyramid: "Isn't it amazing,...
$20,000 Pyramid
The $20,000 Pyramid was a television game show that was hugely popular in America during the 1970s. In When You Reach Me, Louisa's mother is practicing for an appearance on the show. The game show...