Wishes and Wellingtons (Wishes and Wellingtons #1)

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. 

Copyright 2020 Publisher’s Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

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.

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.