When You Reach Me, A Tale of Two Cities, and Mr. Caisse

Today in my 7th grade classroom, we started our first read-aloud of the school year, Rebecca Stead's amazing WHEN YOU REACH ME.   If you read my review, you know how much I love this book.  I've already read it aloud to my eight-year-old daughter, who swooned over it just as much as I did and cannot wait to see Rebecca at the Rochester Children's Book Festival in November to ask her how she made everything fit together so perfectly.

When I finished reading the first two chapters to my classes...