When You Reach Me, By Rebecca Stead

Throughout history there has been 450 school shootings in America. Since 1840, there has only been eight school shootings in Alabama. The book I read was about a school shooting in Alabama, in a small high town called Opportunity. This book was called, This Is Where It Ends. Marieke Nijkamp is the author of this book, and published it January 5th, 2016.

In the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Susanna Kaysen was only 18 years old when she agreed to enter a medium security psychiatric facility in Boston, McLean hospital in April 1967, after a failed suicide attempt. She insisted that her over dose on aspirin was not a suicide attempt, but after a 20 minute interview the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to a hospital. During her prolonged two-year stay at the hospital Kaysen describes the issues that most of the patients in her ward have to deal with and how they all differently deal with the amount of time they must stay in the hospital for. While in the hospital Kaysen experienced a case of depersonalization where she tried to pull the skin of her hands to see if there were bones underneath, after a failed escape attempt. Soon, after going to therapy and analysis she was labeled as having recovered from borderline personality disorder. After her release she realizes that McLean Hospital provided patients with more freedom than the outside world, by being free responsibility of parental pressure, free from school and job responsibilities, and being free from the “social norms” that society comes up with. Ultimately, being in captivity gave the patients more freedom then in society and created a safe environment in which patients wanted to stay in.

In Danielle Allen’s essay, Our Declaration, she argues that all people should understand and recognize that the Declaration gives all people in the United States the undeniable freedom to self-govern. One person has the power to change the government; although this is not specifically stated, the freedom to self-govern implies every voice matters. She guides the reader to this idea by using simple and easy to follow examples to show the reader that they have the power to invoke a change the government. Allen also uses credible sources in order to give her reasoning credibility as well as using arguments that elicit an emotional connection.

Throughout the course of the book, A Long Way Home, Saroo Brierley, the author, encounters a series of traumatic experiences that lead to bittersweet moments. Unlike a normal child’s infancy, Saroo was physically and mentally consuming. Through his experience, we are able to get a glimpse of the many struggles and hardships young children live in India daily. His petrifying experiences of living on the streets, Liluah, and Nava Jeevan finally lead to his safe haven of being taken by the Brierley’s.

Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.

Throughout their lifetimes, individuals encounter a variety of challenges that test their resilience. Sometimes it targets a person’s personality, beliefs, race or culture. It can follow an individual throughout their life or stay in it for a period of time. However, with a strong personality and a determined goal, these obstacles can be conquered. An example of an obstacle that can be a battle in everyday life is prejudice, mostly against the different types of race. Racism is the false conviction that one race is more unrivaled than the other which isolated the world to what it is today. It is a part of human nature, and unfortunately, many people don’t know their limits when it comes to it. Some other individuals, however, have internal conflicts with themselves which, in some situations, limits them from the world.

The short story “The Love Of My Life” by T.C. Boyle's examines two couples who are imagined to be inseparable and how no love comes closer to theirs. The story follows young high school couples who are in the merge of a bright future. They are always together “wearing each other like a pair socks”. They idolized the love they share is something far from real and it is true love. While Jeremy is set to attend Brown and on the other hand China were in Binghamton things took wrong turn. Over the summer before their going to college they mistakenly conceived a baby while they are at a camping trip. The story was pleasant and everything was green and China and Jeremy went to a trip together and had sex. The couples were so keen to avoid this from

Miranda meets a man named Dev at an expensive make-up counter where she becomes enamored with his charm and appearance and from then on continues a relationship with him. Similarly, Miranda’s perspective of her new love is widely altered by her co-worker Laxmi, who usually has stories of heartbreak surrounding her cousin's adulterous husband. Soon Laxmi ends up inviting her poor cousin up to New York for a consoling spa day, but forgets about who will have the responsibility of watching her nephew. So Miranda ends up doing it out of niceness, where she is immediately met with the behavior of a rude elementary school boy named Rohin. 7 year old Rohin goads her into making him coffee, drawing pictures with him, letting him follow her around her apartment, go through her stuff, and just invade her general privacy. Eventually, she is convinced to try on a set of party clothes she had bought with the intention of of wearing in the presence of her lover and a fancy setting. Rohin exclaims and tells her she is “sexy”, something her lover had said just a week earlier. The word choice spurs Miranda to ask the young boy if he knows what he has just said to her, and he tells her he believes that thinking someone is sexy is the equivalent of loving someone you do not know. This makes her realize the impact that his

Porter begins the story with Miranda and her brother Paul exploring a graveyard while out hunting. As they continue with their hunt, Paul shoots a rabbit that is about to give birth. Paul proceeds to carefully slit the dead rabbit open revealing her young unborn babies. This moment is an epiphany for young Miranda as she understands the meaning of rebirth and the cycle of life and death. Miranda later reflects upon this incident years later in a foreign city’s busy bazaar and is reminded of the event that transformed her from an innocent child to a more experienced and knowledgeable young woman.

The novel, Girl, Interrupted is a memoir of author Susana Kaysen’s life and her journey through early adulthood as she suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder. The novel captures her time at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in Belmont, Massachusetts. Kaysen divides the novel into separate anecdotes of events and fellow patients she encountered during the two years she was admitted at Mclean.

When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead is a thrilling conundrum about a girl whose life changes forever when she receives four strange notes. By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend Sal think they know New York City like the back of their hands. They know where it’s secure to walk, who it’s safe to talk to, and how to approach strangers. Straightaway though, Miranda’s life starts to untangle. One day, Sal is hit in the nose by a new kid for what seems like no reason. Sal starts ignoring Miranda, and after some time, he basically shuts her out of his life.Then, Miranda’s apartment key is taken. Miranda does not know what to, make of the note at first, so she sets it away. The notes keep coming though, from the same strange source. As

Rebecca Stead incorporates the veil metaphor into the story when Miranda has a moment of realization towards Julia. On pages 143 and 144, Miranda’s veil is lifted and the truth about Julia’s personality is exposed. Originally, Julia is thought of as a rude and selfish girl, but Miranda’s view about her soon changed. While the two girls listened to a school music assembly, Miranda observed Julia and the way she watched Annemarie, Julia’s best friend. Miranda noticed that Julia did not watch the stage, but she looked at Annemarie. This simple action helped Miranda realize that Julia cared deeply for Annemarie, who Julia argued with not too long ago. Miranda saw that “Julia’s look was my look. My looking at Sal,” on page 144. In this quote, Miranda sees the way she looks at Sal, her best friend, in Julia’s eyes. In this

Racism has always been a hot topic issue in America. Starting, of course, with slavery and enduring long after its abolishment. Many try to put an end to it, but this is one of those things that will take many, many years to completely eradicate from society. In this paper, I will briefly discuss both the Clark Doll Experiment and the film A Girl like Me, discuss my opinion on racism in America, demonstrate how racism effects the schools, and discuss how and why my interpretation of this compares with the views of another culture.

Rebecca Stead is fame as an American writer of fiction for children and teens. The achievement of her novels is not doubtful. She was born on January 16, 1968 and raised in New York City. Vassar College was the institution where she acquired her bachelor’s degree in 1989. Moreover, she has started to write since she was a child but she altered her career to become a lawyer. However, Stead started to become of writing subsequent to the birth of her two children. Her inspiration of writing children’s novel was from her son and her collections of story stories on her laptop. One day, her 4-year-old son by chance pushed her laptop out off the dining-room table and destroyed her piece of writing. Stead was very angry with her son and she went to the bookstore to find books which can inspire her to write. From that moment, her motivation and loving in writing began to boost up, and her debut novel was First Light which won The New York Best Times. Due to her great spirit in writing, she won The American Newbery Medal in 2010, Winner of the Boston Globe –Horn Book Award for Fiction, IRA Children’s Book Award for Young Adult Fiction, A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner and A National Parenting Publications Gold Award for her second novel, When You Reach Me, followed by achieving Guardian Prize in 2013 as the first winner for her third novel, Liar & Spy.

Rebecca Stead develops the story in “When You Reach Me” by showing Miranda’s life experiences in a large city. For example, Miranda’s life might be very different than someone who lives in a rural town. Even though Miranda might have a different life than some other kids in different places, she is still a normal sixth grader even though she has different challenges with her city life. One example were Miranda exampains to the reader how her life might be different since she lives in the city is her list of rules for living in the city.