The Wish Giver

 

The Wish Giver

By: Bill Brittain

If you had one wish, what would you wish for? Four people in the town of Coven Tree had to decide just that when they purchased a 50 cent wish from Thaddeus Blinn, a self-proclaimed wish giver.  Three of the wish purchasers were children, and they each had their own priorities and their own desires that they wanted to fulfill. Polly, a child who consistently took blunt honesty too far just wanted to be liked, specifically by her the two girls she most admired. Rowena wanted nothing more than for Henry Price to settle in Coven Tree, in the hopes that then they could pursue a relationship. And Adam just wished that his extremely dry family farm would have more water than it could need.  Of course, there wishes were never exactly what they seemed, and they would have to work together to try to undo the damage they inadvertently cause.

This books has classic them of being careful what you wish for. However, I think it is important to note that wishing isn't entirely bad. While, careless wishes did have disastrous consequences (although, I'm not so sure they world wouldn't have been a better place if the insufferable Henry Price hadn't been freed of his flora fate) the only solution that is found in the end is in a wish. With one of the characters' family literally up a creek without a paddle, it was only through the fourth neglected wish that the harm could be undone. I think this speaks of the folly of age, but also the hope of it. None of the children were terribly careful with their wishes. They had only one, but they made them in the heat of the moment, which didn't exactly result in what they really wanted. It was the adult who was able to make a successful, consequence free wish. 

However, don't be thinking that the adults then came out on top in this book because it was only the kids who even made a wish on simply good faith and desires. While they might not have been reluctant to believe the card, when they thought of something they wanted, they took a chance and wished for it. Stew Mean, the general store manager and the fourth wisher, didn't even try, but instead dropped the card in the back of a drawer and forgot about it. He would have never have wished at all if not for the children. From this book, I found several entertaining stories, but I as someone who is really on the divide between youth (because lets face it, recent college graduates who went straight into a master's program haven't quite had to grow up completely, yet) and adulthood I also took a deeper meaning from it. Youth is magical, it has hope. Adulthood should be about refining and using that hope to achieve good things, but if we're not careful, we can forget to hope because hoping could result in failure. Perhaps I read too much into it, but I think it was a book about more than an old proverb, but one of magic, hope, faith, and compassion. Just look at the Wickstaff twins if you need more proof, their reactions and loyalty to Polly, even at her worst, show just how important compassion can be. 

I enjoyed this book, both as entertaining stories and as a jumping point for some very personal thought. I also liked it because it reminded me of one of my personal favorites, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. So if you read The Wish Giver and like it, consider picking this Ray Bradbury novel up. It deals with magic, coming of age questions, and the consequences of some wishes.