Wish

 

Shirley J.      Juvenile Fiction               Broken Homes, Loving Relatives, True Friends and a Dog

Wish by Barbara O' Connor    256 pages

11 year old Charlie Reese's Dad can't stay out of jail.    Her Mama is fond of drink and is currently on a depression downswing she can't lift herself out of.   Social Services steps in and removes Charlie from her Arkansas home then sends her to live with her mother's sister, Charlie's Aunt and her husband who live in North Carolina.   While the scenery of the Blue Ridge mountains is beautiful, Charlie misses her friends at school in Arkansas, and even if home wasn't all that, with her folks hollering and fighting most of the time, at least she had her older sister to make her laugh and comfort her when things got rough.   Now her sister is finishing out her last few months of highschool and was allowed to stay with her best friend in her friend's parent's home till she is old enough to graduate and leave home.   Charlie is miserable getting sent to live with strangers - she had never met these people - shoved in with a bunch of squirrel eatin' hillbillies!   Charlie railed at everything.  No matter how nice folks tried to be to her and how understanding of her being taken away from everything she was familiar with to be thrust into a new home, new circumstances, a new school.   Her Aunt and Uncle love her even when she treats them awfully.    She would set those hillbilly kids at school straight too, after all, one of her three favorite things was fighting.  She got her temper from her Daddy who was always going to jail for fighting.   After several altercations with other kids at school, some not undeserved, she is assigned a study buddy to show her the ropes of the school/system.   He becomes her unlikely mentor and friend as do his family.  Charlie makes life hard for herself but with her new mantra to chant when she gets angry she tries to cool her jets a bit though following through with her fists comes easier.  A stray dog she meets and names, Wishbone, changes her life.   A deeply sweet story with lots of humor and I don't think any one will go away untouched by Charlie and her plight.  I recommend this one to grade schoolers on up.   Adults will like this story, too.