The Wishing Box

By Dashka Slater

Book Overview

A sometimes funny, sometimes magical first novel, The Wishing Box explores the surprising and unintended consequences of getting what you ask for. Julia, an almost-30 single mom whose life is mostly together, lives in Oakland with her seven-year-old son. Never suspecting it will actually work, she and her sister create a wishing box and half-seriously hold a ceremony for the return of the father who abandoned them as children. Astonishingly, he comes backbut Julia's life has already moved abruptly in a new direction, and she has taken off in much the same way her father had many years before. Julia and her unusual family are at the heart of this novel about appearances and disappearances, the desire to control the future and explain the past, and the legacies passed on from one generation to another.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811826066
• ISBN13: 9780811826068
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Truly sweet and affecting

I loved the combination of sweetness and magic in this book. And I especially loved the nuggets of insight about human nature that the author embeds in her dazzling prose. I read it on a plane from San Francisco to Maine--the hours disappeared.

Allende move over?

What a beautiful novel! I found it remniscent of Isabelle Allende and Barbara Kingsolver in its slightly mystical tone and its strong, likable female characters. The main two, Julia and Aunt Simone, are both quirky, intelligent, and very real; they are people that I would like to know and hang out with. The book is filled with incredibly creative and vivid imagery, and the prose is absolutely lyrical in parts. I had to ration the book to myself, night by night, to put off its ending. I highly recommend this book, and hope that Ms. Slater has more stories to tell us, and soon.

A lyrical spellbinding work

This is the most beautiful piece of fiction that I have read since Toni Morrison's Beloved. The changing poing of view, poetic passages and flowing narration all work to make this piece a polished gem that deserves the highest accolades. I was dissapointed when it ended and surprised to find that this is Slater's first work. The Wishing Box is expertly crafted, engaging and tends more toward poetry than it does towards prose.

Brilliant and beautiful

I simply haven't read a book this well written in years. The story is spellbinding, the characters complex and real, and the language pure poetry. It tells its story from several different points of view, which is a terrific device for this novel, since these points are delivered from very different yet equally funny, fantastic and flawed characters. In fact, you should read it for Aunt Simone's take on life alone. This is simply a great novel, and a must read.