Something Wonderful: A Wrinkle in Time – When You Reach Me – Breadcrumbs

I love cultural “breadcrumbs” in books, movies, and music — those times when one thing gives a nod to something that came before it.  I’m not referring to epigraphs or cover songs or novels that retell a story through the eyes of another character, although all of these can be very enjoyable. I’m thinking of instances when, if you know the work to which another work is referring, you experience a little thrill of recognition… and if you don’t know the original, inspirational work but realize that a reference is being made to it, you might be inclined to seek it out.

One fun trail of these “breadcrumbs” occurs in three books by three different authors published over the course of 49 years: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, and Breadcrumbs (yes, Breadcrumbs) by Anne Ursu. All three books involve a female protagonist who does not fit in. In all three, the protagonist is being raised by a mother who, if not actually a single parent, is parenting alone at the time of the action. And the first two books were Newbery Award winners.

I’m confident that most of my readers are familiar with A Wrinkle in Time, which was published in 1962. Even if you’ve never read it, you can certainly understand When You Reach Me and Breadcrumbs — both books stand on their own — but you’ll get more out of the books, particularly Stead’s, if you read A Wrinkle in Time first.

Published in 2009, When You Reach Me is set in New York City in the late 1970s. The main character, Miranda, is a sixth grader with one lifelong friend — a boy named Sal, who lives in her apartment building. The book weaves together the story of how Miranda copes when Sal stops talking to her with a mystery involving a series of anonymous notes that have been left for her.  A Wrinkle in Time figures heavily in the story — it is Miranda’s favorite book, and a boy named Marcus uses it to introduce the subject of time travel.

“Some people think it’s possible, you know,” Marcus mumbled.

“What?”

He pointed at my book. “Time travel. Some people think it’s possible. Except those ladies lied, at the beginning of the book.”

“What?”

“Those ladies in the book—Mrs. What, Mrs. Where, and Mrs. Who.”

“Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which,” I corrected him.

He shrugged.

Like When You Reach Me, the 2011 book Breadcrumbs is a tale of a fractured “best and only friends” relationship between the main character, Hazel Anderson, and the boy next door, Jack. Hazel’s name is surely no accident; the book is based somewhat loosely around Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Snow Queen. Lots of other references show up in the book, including nods to some Andersen’s other fairy tales and to The Hobbit, the Harry Potter series, The Chronicles of Narnia, and, of course, A Wrinkle in Time. Ursu also alludes to When You Reach Me, though only once and not by name.

She opened up the new library book she’d brought for the bus ride and willed her thoughts to disappear in the page. The girl in it was reading A Wrinkle in Time. She was best friends with a boy who lived in the apartment below. And then one day the boy stopped talking to her.

As in Andersen’s fairy tale, Jack is taken by the Snow Queen, and Hazel sets out to save him. But when she enters the woods in pursuit of her friend, things turn dark. This is no delicate fairy tale, where the brave and beautiful heroine seems almost to float through the hardships she encounters, making friends all along the way. In fact, Hazel finds that, once she adventures into the woods, things don’t work at all the way she expected them to. The darkness of the tale reminds me a bit of Neil Gaiman (his Coraline is yet another book that Ursu references in her story), and when one character tells Hazel, “The woods does funny things to people,” I couldn’t help but think of Jennifer Roberson’s Karavans series.

With all of the references in Breadcrumbs, you could set up a year-long book club. But this week I’m going to suggest that you focus on the trail that leads from A Wrinkle in Time to When You Reach Me and, finally, to Breadcrumbs. You won’t regret it.