Secondhand Wishes

November 1, 2018
Be careful what you wish on.Lexi Block has tried to bargain with the universe: She hopes that doing everything right will keep her sickly younger brother well. But things are going wrong. Previously a model student, seventh-grader Lexi struggles with new ways of doing math and earns several surprising detentions. Worse, 4-year-old Austin has had to have another stomach surgery. To top it off, Lexi's longtime best friend, Cassa, seems to be paying more attention to new student Marina, who's traveled to places Cassa only dreams about. It's no wonder Lexi, who helps in Cassa's mom's antiques store after school because she enjoys the process of putting things in order, turns to the wishing stones she finds in a bag of donations. These wishes have unpredictable consequences. Lexi is a believable seventh-grader with some interesting quirks. Cassa, who wants to spend time with her father overseas, realizes her routine-loving friend would have difficulty with that major change, so she tries to make some minor ones, but Lexi is predictably hurt. Communication between the two girls breaks down just as Lexi begins to spend more time with a previously distant aunt. When the four-leaf clovers Lexi has been buying from another classmate turn out to have been frauds, she begins to try to make her own luck, just as he had suggested. These characters are assumed white.In spite of some improbable coincidences, this will satisfy middle-grade readers who want to believe that wishes can come true. (Fiction. 9-12)

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November 15, 2018
Grades 4-6 With her four-year-old brother in the hospital again and her parents worried about money, Lexi feels extra pressure to make things go right at school and at home. Superstitious by nature, she's delighted to find a cast-off set of wishing stones labeled Friendship, Health, Family, and Success. Gradually, she starts using them, first to keep her longtime best friend from drifting away, and next to ensure her brother's recovery. Her wishes come sort of true, but usually bizarre twists complicate matters, and Lexi wonders whether she can count on magic to solve her problems. Still, when she finds a fifth stone, Luck, the temptation to set things right proves irresistible. Lexi's first-person narrative offers a very readable account of a seventh-grader's thoughts, emotions, and insecurities as she deals with stress on several fronts. An intergenerational subplot serves to fill in the backstory of the wishing stones, while offering sidelights on Lexi and her dilemmas. A middle-grade chapter book with a likable protagonist and just a hint of magic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)