The Wish Giver

Wise people always say, “Watch what you wish for.” The book “The Wish Giver” tells us a story of three young people who get a wish card, which can fulfill their one wish, whatever it is. The story tells us how; the wishes came true but along came unexpected miseries to the three people and many others around them. In conclusion the book teaches us that we should stay happy with the things we get and should not wish for something more because it might result in a total different way. HA! HA! HA! EVIL!!

The story occurs in Coven Tree in the part of New England during the time of about 1970. Coven Tree was a small town with many of its residents doing farming. I personally would not like to live in Coven tree because many things go wrong as the story progresses. The overall environment and some timely events do affect the story. One of the characters makes a wish to get out of his daily chores of fetching water due to dry lands. Another character has infatuation for a sales man and makes a wish because of the lies made by the sales person. The living conditions in Coven Tree were village like, and different from our city living conditions.

The five main characters are Thaddeus Blinn, Polly Kemp, Rowena Jervis, Adam Fiske and Stew Meat. Thaddeus is the antagonist, who leads the other characters of the book to believe in magic and does not warn them of the dark side of making wishes. The other four main characters get a card each that allows them to make a wish. At the beginning of the story, the author describes Polly as someone who wants to be friends with Agatha and Eunice, and wants that everyone smile when they see her. Rowena is shown as a girl who really likes Henry Piper, a salesman who lies to her. Adam is a farmer’s son, whose land is very dry. Therefore, Adam has to fetch a wagon full of water from the crick everyday. Stew is a storeowner, who is very wise and satisfied. In the story, Thaddeus is depicted as an antagonist and the rest of the four characters are protagonists.

At the start, Stew, Polly, Adam and Rowena are given a wish card each by Thaddeus Blinn. After that, the book tells three parallel but different and unrelated stories about bad things that can happen with magic. In the first parallel segment, it is shown that Polly is a very mean and rude child, who calls everyone bad names. Other kids do not like to play with Polly because of her habit of name-calling. Overcome by everyone’s disgust for her, Polly wishes that everyone smiled when they see her. Her wish comes true but in a very different way. Whenever, she