Wishes and Wellingtons

August 1, 2020
Grades 5-8 Berry's magical boarding-school adventure, originally produced as an audiobook, is now in book form, and it will ensorcell and entertain any who enjoy a feisty protagonist or the conceit of a wish-granting djinni. Maeve Merritt is a scrappy 13-year-old, born into a respectable, presumably white, family in nineteenth-century London. Unfortunately, deportment lessons and a future as someone's wife don't much appeal to her, so her time at Miss Salamanca's School for Upright Young Ladies has been fraught, to say the least. While serving out a punishment of sifting through garbage, Maeve finds a sardine tin that contains not fish but a rude, odiferous djinni. At last, her dreams of starting a girls' cricket league and of traveling around the world are within reach! As she ponders how to best use her wishes, she must fend off attempts by others to steal the tin, and learn to control her own impulsive nature. Berry mixes classic storytelling with modern feminism, as Maeve forges genuine friendships, outsmarts a powerful foe, and matures without losing her edge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2020

Gr 3-6-When schoolyard brawler Maeve Merritt gets assigned garbage duty for detention, the last thing she expects to find is a djinni in a discarded sardine tin. Mermeros the djinni might be able to grant Maeve three wishes, but he warns her about greed that leads to "madness and ruin." Though Maeve just wants to travel and start a girls' cricket team, the consequences of greed grow as other people seek to steal Mermeros away from her. Aided by her roommate Alice and the orphan boy-next-door Tommy, Maeve learns to use her wits rather than her fists to keep Mermeros out of the clutches of the villainous Mr. Treazleton and Baroness Gabrielle. Berry's novel, set in Victorian England, offers readers a challenging, truculent protagonist in Maeve, whose rebellion against traditional gender roles and expectations often leads her to ignore the suffering of others. Mermeros is delightfully grouchy; he is not a captive of his fishy tin and his wish-granting role suits his mordant sense of humor. However, his historical and cultural otherness never gains Maeve's full attention; the growth of her empathy is local as she learns to advocate for Tommy, who is otherwise doomed to work at a cotton mill. Some background on djinni mythology and Mermeros's Mesopotamian origins would have been be interesting, especially when the novel takes place at the height of Britain's "Age of Empire." VERDICT This novel spotlights friendship and an athletic, unconventional heroine, but the depiction of the djinni is under-explored and simplistic. Readers looking for a fantastical romp through Victorian England will be entertained.-Katherine Magyarody, Texas A&M University, College Station

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2020
A magical sardine can brings a Victorian girl the promise of three wishes. Stuck at Miss Salamanca's School for Upright Young Ladies, Maeve Merritt, prone to foul language and fisticuffs, wants a life of her own making filled with travel and cricket, not the stultifying life dictated by family and society. But an unopened sardine can found in a rubbish pile brings the unexpected arrival of Mermeros, an ancient djinni. Will Maeve lose her integrity to greed like all the previous djinni masters? Soon Maeve, her roommate Alice, and local orphan Tom are in the midst of more adventure, blackmail, and danger than they ever imagined possible. Maeve's first-person narrative moves swiftly, peppered by her droll observations and witty dialogue. Small details weave together to create an engaging tapestry that becomes more complex and compelling with every page turn. Maeve is highly possessive of her good fortune, but an altruistic eleventh-hour choice leads to happy endings for all after she wrestles with her conscience and ponders the gap between rich and poor. When Maeve and Tommy raid the sarcophagus of a long-ago Persian king, Alice pushes back against the theft. Human characters are cued as White; the cover shows Maeve with brown skin and black hair, but her appearance and ethnicity are not described in the text. (This review has been updated to reflect a change between the advance reader copy and final edition.) A nostalgic Dickens and Nesbit mashup. (Historical fantasy. 10-13)

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September 7, 2020
After 13-year-old Maeve Merritt’s temper gets her in trouble, yet again, at Miss Salamanca’s School for Upright Young Ladies, she’s sentenced to several days of rubbish sorting, where she makes a startling discovery: a sardine can in which resides bad-tempered djinni Mermero. While Maeve determines how to best enjoy her resultant three wishes, she must deal with bullying classmates, inquisitive roommate Alice, and Tom, a spying orphan. Maeve uses one of her wishes to launch Alice, Tom, and herself on an adventure; they wind up in Persia, where they face Mermeros’s frightening, shape-shifting family. That encounter’s repercussions follow them home, where unscrupulous forces seek possession of the djinni’s powers. Berry’s (Lovely War) globe-spanning romp balances tongue-in-cheek humor with a heartfelt focus on found family and
friendship as the newly minted trio face impossible odds, both mundane and supernatural. Though colonialist elements reflect outmoded cultural standards in line with the 1896 setting, Maeve’s drive to eschew marriage and propriety in favor of independence conveys a message of female empowerment. Ages 8–11. Agent: Alyssa Eisner Henkin, Trident Media Group.