Right Back at You
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From the award-winning, bestselling author of Not If I Can Help It, a story about reaching across time to find the support you need against bullies, bad friends, and antisemitism.
Mason lives in 2023. His parents have just split up, and there's a guy at school who won't get off his case. As part of an assignment, he writes a letter to Albert Einstein and it ends up getting a little too personal. He throws the letter into his closet...
...and the next day he gets a letter back from a girl named Talia, who lives in 1987. She has problems of her own, including classmates who make jokes because she's Jewish. She thought her friends would have her back. But it ends up the only person she really has to talk to is... a random boy from the future?
In the tradition of such beloved novels as When You Reach Me and Save Me a Seat, Carolyn Mackler has written a funny, all-too-relatable story about finding the friend you need... even if that friends happens to live in another year.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ever since his father abandoned the family and his school bully upped the ante on his taunting, middle schooler Mason has been having a tough time. When his therapist asks him to "write a letter to anybody or nobody," Mason addresses his correspondence to Albert Einstein, hoping the theoretical physicist can use time travel to "transport me to a time and place where things aren't as sucky." He then throws the letter in his closet and, to his surprise, receives a response the next day from someone named Talia. Even stranger is that, while Mason lives in 2023 New York City, Talia purportedly hails from 1987 western Pennsylvania. Soon, the 12-year-olds are communicating regularly across space and time via their closets, and Mason learns that Talia is teased for being Jewish, her best friend is freezing her out, and the baseball coach won't let her try out for the team because she's a girl. Mackler (Not if I Can Help It) moves the plot along swiftly and satisfyingly as the resourceful white-cued protagonists use the time difference to encourage each other to move beyond their comfort zones. Ages 9–12.
