When her best friend Belle has to move suddenly, it leaves Raven Rose alone and, even worse, the sole presenter of their Voices of History project! Belle was the outgoing, take-charge person in their friendship and Raven is miserable at the thought of having to present all by herself. She thinks frantically of ways to get out of it, but nothing sounds like it would work until she goes into the woods to find a missing ball and finds something else instead...
A wishing well! A wishing well that leads to a mysterious library that is full of wishes. Raven knows just what to wish for and ignores all the warnings from the strange librarian to get a snow day - that cancels school and, she thinks, her presentation.
Of course, wishes never turn out quite as one expects, and Raven Rose finds there are lots of unexpected consequences of her wish, from a tentative friendship with Luca, the new boy in town, to putting her parents' jobs in danger, not to mention the animals in the zoo. Raven finally finds her courage to return the wish, change everything back to normal, and go through with her presentation. But the Wish Library isn't gone forever...
Black and white illustrations show white Raven, brown-skinned Luca, and their quirky, suburban southern California town experiencing snow for the first time. Luca is a friendly, interesting character who promises to be more prominent in the next book, when it's hinted he'll make his own wish.
Verdict: A mildly humorous and pleasant addition to the genre of beginning chapters that deal with school and relationships. Teachers who still long after the Bailey School Kids may find this a good substitute.
ISBN: 9780807587416; Published March 2021 by Albert Whitman; Borrowed from another library in my consortium
No comments:
Post a Comment