ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
INTERMEDIATE FICTION
Berry, Julie

Wishes and Wellingtons

367 pp. | Sourcebooks | October, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-7282-2325-4 $16.99
(2) 4-6 The time-tested premise of three magic wishes foolishly squandered meets a djinni right out of the Thousand and One Nights and a pastiche late–Victorian London setting in this lively boarding school romp/fantasy/mystery/adventure. Maeve Merritt, reluctant student at Miss Salamanca's School for Upright Young Ladies, unleashes a grumpy djinni named Mermeros from a tin of sardines, and mayhem ensues. Maeve, our impulsive, plucky heroine with a talent for getting into scrapes, wastes her first wish in a fit of temper against the school's requisite mean girl. For her second wish, she treats herself and her two friends, a true-blue sidekick and a neglected orphan boy, to a magical whirlwind flight across Europe to Mermeros's homeland in Persia. As we wait on tenterhooks for Maeve's third and final wish, the plot gets a little overwrought, with the backstory of a curse, a mysterious ginger-bearded stalker, a creepy abandoned mansion, and threats posed by an evil, rapacious captain of industry. But all is saved by Berry's (The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, rev. 9/14; The Emperor's Ostrich, rev. 7/17) palpable joy in original use of language. There are plums on every page. Maeve scorns her mother's choice of suitable companions for her as "the fluffy daughters of her feathery friends." The oppressive headmistress has "bewildering teeth." And who could resist a protagonist who describes a bloodcurdling scream as "eldritch"?
Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2020

RELATED 

INTERMEDIATE FICTION

The Republic of Birds
by Miller, Jessica
INTERMEDIATE FICTION

Atlantis
by Mone, Gregory
INTERMEDIATE FICTION

It Doesn't Take a Genius
by Rhuday-Perkovich, Olugbemisola
INTERMEDIATE FICTION

Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls
by Rivera, Kaela
INTERMEDIATE FICTION

Soul Lanterns
by Kuzki, Shaw
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?