The Last Wishmaker
Every birthday candle blown out beneath squeezed-shut eyes, every dandelion scattered into the wind, every first star whispered to and every coin dropped into the darkness of a wishing well carries something with it.
A wish.
Children have always known how to make them.
What nobody ever properly told them was where those wishes go.
Hidden beneath roots, behind old walls and in the quiet places people rarely think to look live the Wishmakers: tiny creatures who hear wishes travelling through smoke, wind, starlight and water. They gather them, protect them and, when the time is right, help them find their way home.
Usually, they are very good at it.
Unfortunately, Mallow has been asleep.
Not through breakfast.
Not for a day.
For years.
When one determined little wish finally wakes him, Mallow discovers a hidden world that has become strangely silent. The lanterns are cold. Workshops stand empty. Nobody answers when he calls. And everywhere he looks are the wishes that never made it home: crowded into old jars, overflowing from baskets and waiting in corners where no wish should have needed to wait.
Mallow cannot return them all at once.
But he can return one.
So, with his old woven satchel at his side and his silver dandelion plume glowing behind him, he sets out to find the children who made them.
Some wishes have been waiting for friendship.
Some carry courage that was never quite lost.
Some belong to dreams that were abandoned after too many failed attempts.
Others have been sitting quietly while the children who made them grew older, changed, learned and became different people.
And Mallow begins to discover something important.
A Wishmaker cannot simply make the world obey a wish.
Returning a wish does not guarantee that everything suddenly becomes perfect. Sometimes it simply helps someone notice what was already growing. Sometimes it brings back the courage to take one small step. Sometimes it returns a question, an idea, a possibility or something worth trying again.
But every wish Mallow returns leaves something behind.
A thin golden thread.
Then another appears.
And another.
Soon the threads begin to move.
They cross gardens, bedrooms, theatres and fields before joining together and stretching towards somewhere beyond the sleeping town.
Mallow follows.
Because perhaps the wishes have been trying to tell him something too.
Beautifully illustrated and filled with warmth, humour, mystery and wonder, The Last Wishmaker is a magical children's story about imagination, hope, friendship, courage, curiosity, patience, creativity and belonging.
Beneath its adventure lies a gentle idea for children and grown-ups alike: growing older does not mean every hope we once carried has disappeared, and possibility does not always arrive in the way we expected.
Some wishes change as we change.
Some take longer.
Some need us to meet them halfway.
And sometimes the smallest forgotten hope can remind us that there may still be another path worth exploring.
So if you have made a wish lately, you may need to be a little patient.
The Wishmakers have rather a lot of catching up to do.
But they are awake again.
Because sometimes, when a forgotten wish finds its way home, that is where the next part begins.Customer Reviews
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