Wished

OK, I need to start by mentioning that 65[ish] is not all that old. But I can see that the three children in Wished by Lissa Evans think so. We can even appear a bit boring, and who’d want to spend their half-term at the house of an ‘old’ neighbour? Well, she might be under the impression that WiFi is a type of biscuit, but she is so kind as to want to supply them with their wished-for biscuit.

And there is that word, wished-for, which is what this whole, wonderful book is about. That, and a very smelly cat. I loved Wished, and I don’t even like cats that much.

It’s when you hit your [reading] rock bottom and feel that nothing truly good will ever come your way again, and then a story like Wished arrives and it’s all you can do to not swallow it whole, in one sitting (which would leave you with not so much to read again), because you simply must.

Birthday cake candles. They can be wished on. Did you know that?

Here we have siblings Ed and Roo, needing to be removed from their own house for the week, and then there is Elastico, aka Willard, from the house behind Miss Filey’s. She’s the one with the biscuits.

It takes virtually no time at all for the children to somehow light a candle – because it’s what you do in a strange house, isn’t it? – and discover that wishes come true, if only for ten seconds. And then you need to organise yourselves a bit so that wishes are handled carefully, and at some point you need to explain to adult people why the sofa looks as if someone set fire to it. And the cat smells. Did I mention that?

What can I say? Except to quote the last sentence of chapter one; ‘What happened at Miss Filey’s house was beyond imagination’. I feel so happy just saying that. I could read the book all over again.

Miss Filey is not boring, even if she doesn’t know about WiFi. But the cat does smell. And the world can be quite wonderful sometimes. Like this book.

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