March RandomKIT - Wishes

With the way things are currently with the world, I have found myself wishing for simpler times and better behaviors.
My favorite activities as a kid (and even now) were wishing on the first star of the night and blowing dandelions to spread wishes throughout the world.
Some of my favorite childhood songs are about wishing. "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" and "When You Wish Upon A Star" that I still find myself singing when I am feeling wistful.

So this month read about wishes. Whimsical, thoughtful, loving wishes.

And I wish you will add your book to the WIKI

Edited 3/16 to correct the Wiki link.

I will be reading The Wishing Jar by Penelope Stokes

I will read Wish by Barbara O'Connor It's about a young girl's wish for a permanent family and then she has a dog named Wishbone. This book was written for 9-12 year olds.

Great topic! I am going to read They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman, a prep-school murder mystery.

Love it! I have been meaning to read Five Children and It for a while.

Wonderful topic! I don't know what I will read yet, but it will be fun to look for a book that fits.

I was just about to start The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride, but now I'll save it til March.

I've had Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven by Dawn Turner Trice on my shelf forever, so I'll go ahead and plan on reading that one.

This is a cool and happy idea! Interestingly, my traditional closing signature line for years on cards and letters has been,”Wishing you the best always.”

I will have to look for something. I still like to "wish on the first star".

I plan to re-read Oh How I Wished I Could Read.

I think I will read I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver.

I chose a book from my LT Wishlist: A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside by Susan Branch (2013). It's a memoir about a couple's long-time wish to take an extended vacation through England.

I picked it up from the library and I dipped into it last night. It's set up like a scrap-book, with photos and illustrations by the author, and the text is done by hand. It's a lovely book--here's a page from the book I found online:



It would be a dream come-true for me to take such a trip, so I'll be traveling along and dreaming...

>13 kac522: I also have this on the To Read List I keep on my library's website and will probably read it too.

I'm not sure how closely this fits, but I might give it a try. It's four short stories, and from the description, this is one (where I think "wishes" might fit): "Rat' sees a frustrated writer strike a Faustian bargain to complete his novel,"

If It Bleeds / Stephen King

The Wish List by Eoin Colfer
Although this is not a genre I usually read, I was tempted because the title is a shoo-in for this category. Entertaining, surprisingly witty, and with an intriguing plot, but ultimately, not for me.

On the rationale that a dream is like a wish, I read Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins.

42. The Wishing Jar by Penelope J Stokes ★★★

The Wishing Jar. It's a family heirloom, with a magical legend attached. But Abby, Edith, and Neal Grace know the Wishing Jar isn't really magic. If it were, Abby would have relief from the responsibilities that weigh her down. Edith would have gone to be with her beloved Sam instead of living the strange half-life of a stroke victim. And Neal Grace would be out on her own instead of being trapped in this dark, suffocating house with an anxious, overworked mother and a debilitated grandmother. But the Jar does wield some elusive force. Its red-and-gold phoenix is a symbol of survival- of life rising from the ashes. For nearly a hundred years, the Wishing Jar has been inexplicably linked to a lineage of strong Quinn women. Despite its lure, Abby, Edith, and Neal Grace are painfully aware that no magic jar can grant their wishes and give them the kind of life they want. Yet the Wishing Jar does lead the elder Quinn on a journey somewhere between past and present - a journey that will alter the course of all their lives.

A short easy read that had a beginning and an end, although to me it was missing a middle. Once we introduced the characters and their issues, we immediately went to the end story and the resolutions without building any of the stories.

Finished Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven and absolutely loved it. If you're a fan of writers like Gloria Naylor and Alice Walker, this is one worth checking out. Full review written.

>19 whitewavedarling:
I liked that one too!
You might also like Imani All Mine by Connie Rose Porter.

I have completed my read of They Wish They Were Us by Jessica Goodman but unfortunately it was a little too YA orientated for my taste.

>20 nrmay:, Thank you--I'll look into it!

I've read The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride by Joe Siple.

>13 kac522: I finished A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside by Susan Branch (2013), and it was everything I wished it to be!

>24 kac522: Taking a BB on this one. Thank you.

I finished The Wish by Gail Carson Levine--a fun, quick middle-grade novel.

I've read The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister. Lillian was just four when her father left them and her mother developed a preoccupation with books, reading one after the other and doing almost nothing else. She became distant from Lilian who wished more than anything that her mother would become herself again.

April's thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/369263

>1 lowelibrary: Hello. The wiki link in the first post is linking to the CoverKIT page instead of to the RandomKIT page. (at least as of 8p PST on 3/16 :)

>29 madhatter22: Thank you for pointing that out. I have corrected the link and it now goes to the RandomKIT page.

I read A Desirable Residence by Madeleine Wickham
Who hasn’t wished for a desirable residence?

This predates the author’s books written under her pseudonym Sophie Kinsella. It was a wise move to abandon her real name after this disaster! While I can get over unpleasant characters, here they are grating, one-dimensional, and up to no good.

I have finished The Mountain in the Sea, a science fiction book set in a damaged marine world, and I found myself wishing that we won’t let it come to this.

edited for touchstone

Had to be a bit creative with this one.
Read We solve murders by Richard Osman, a Christmas gift from our wishlist.

I am still reading my book, but should finish sometime this week. I am just over half way through, but have to set it aside for one that is due back at the library sooner, and I am unable to renew it, due to further holds (possibly because it's my book club's book this month and many of us get our books from the library!).

What I Wish I'd Known When I Was Young

This book was written by the hosts of the Times podcast 'What I Wish I'd Known', which I admit I haven't listened to, but from what I can gather, their podcast is very similar to this book.

Drawing on interviews from a huge amount of successful people, from sports stars to musicians to CEOs to spies and politicians from every side and all over the world, the authors discuss the traits that have helped these people succeed, and how they were forged by adversity in their early lives, such as deaths of parents and siblings, abuse, poverty, and disability. The authors do acknowledge that for every child who is made more empathetic, more ambitious, more creative by trauma and tragedy, there are more who are broken by these same experiences. However, this book is a message of hope for those who have been through adversity, and the parents, teachers, and carers of children who may face or already have gone through adversity.

This book ends with a chapter discussing the 'COVID generation', and how a worldwide pandemic may become the fuel for a new generation of great movers and shakers. While I did appreciate that hopeful note, I felt this chapter overall (in great contrast to the rest of the book, I might add) was very derisive and contemptuous, mentioning how great this new generation would be compared to 'generation snowflake' (yes, that is a quote directly from the book) and how no millennial could accomplish anything because they crumbled into sand at any hint of a challenge, due, of course, to the way they were raised without any sort of challenge or hardship (no mention or blame towards who was doing the raising, of course) as if millennials weren't coming of age just when 9/11 shook the world or during terrible economic hardships.

If you can read this book without the ending souring it for you (or skipping that chapter entirely, if you need), I would still recommend this book, as without that bit at the end it was very inspiring, not to mention interesting.

Thank you to everyone who participated this month. I WISH all of you lots of 5-star reads for the rest of the year.
I did take a BB for >23 dudes22:

I read I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver and really liked it.