AVA TREE AND THE WISHES THREE

When three of her wishes come true on her birthday, eight-year-old Ava Tree is sure she has the wishing power. But her power doesn’t extend to bringing her parents, dead two years now, back to life. Here, the writer of The Pony Pals offers a sympathetic stand-alone story about coping with loss. Ava lives with her grown brother, Jack, whose efforts to keep her childhood normal and to be the family she needs are laudable. The first-person narration moves smoothly through the events of three days: her birthday party, a pet show and a visit to the swimming pool with friends. Young readers will find simple sentences, straightforward chronology and Dominguez’s black-and-white illustrations to reinforce and break up the text, but Betancourt slips in some narrative challenge, leaving them to wonder: Does Ava really have such power or is it all coincidence? This sophistication, Ava’s unusual situation and the realistic depiction of young people carrying on after a terrible loss set this book above the usual chapter-book fare. (Fiction. 7-9)