It strikes me that book award panels often cause a crisis of conscience for librarians. On one hand, as an intellectual person who appreciates word craft and good literature and feels a certain responsibility to have award winning books in my library, I am dedicated to purchasing the books that are chosen by the various panels.
On the other hand, my miniscule budget and desire to spend this money on books that I know will be popular makes me think twice about letting my limited resources go for something that I know will just sit on the shelf. It's not that these titles are bad, (in fact, many of them are quite good) just that they are not what the kids want to read.
"When You Reach Me" is just such a book. It is quirky, well written and enjoyable if you are an adult, but I just can't see kids relating to it. Although Miranda is a likeable character, she is just too precocious and weird. Also, I can't see teens or tweens relating to this time period. Who has even heard of the Ten Thousand Dollar Pyramid? The ending sort of saves the book but I'm wondering how many kids will understand what all has happened. I didn't really get it at first and had to reread to understand. Maybe I'm just dim.
So, there's my quandary. Do I buy this book because it's important to have good quality literature for teens? After all, if I only want to spend money on things that will circ I should get rid of my whole collection and just buy "Twilight" and all of the other books with a vampire storyline.
But,like "The Higher Power of Lucky" I can see this book staring at me from the shelves, uncirced and untouched, driving my pragmatic and miserly conscience crazy. Like booktalking a novel that I don't really think kids will enjoy, "When You Reach Me" really is one of those things that makes me conflicted!
