By Rebecca Stead
A girl in 1970s New York starts getting notes from someone who somehow already knows the future, and the mystery of who's writing them is also a mystery about time itself.
Miranda is a sixth grader in New York City in 1979. Her mom is about to be a contestant on a TV game show, her best friend Sal suddenly stops speaking to her after a strange boy punches him on the street, and a man who sleeps under the mailbox on the corner keeps laughing at nothing. Then the notes start. Small folded notes, left where only Miranda could find them, written by someone who knows things that haven't happened yet, and who says they're coming to save a friend's life, and needs her help. To understand who's writing them, Miranda has to think hard about her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, and about whether time really only moves one way.
This is where the trail asks your child to read like a detective. The story is told a little out of order, doubling back, dropping clues that don't make sense until later, and it trusts your child to hold it all and put it together, which is a real step up in reading stamina and attention. When the pieces finally lock, and they do, completely, children get that rush of a puzzle solved by their own head. It's a quieter, more grown-up kind of book than the earlier rungs: no less gripping, but the gears are turning underneath rather than out front. It rewards a reader who's ready to slow down and think, and it opens straight into a conversation about time, choices, and everyday kindness.