WISHY-WISHY-WOCO-MO-LOCO

A girl with an unpronounceable name discovers that she can use wordplay to change other people’s destinies in Somreth’s middle-grade novel.

Jane Doe Smith has been raised on word games by Mommy Dee and Daddy Joe in a double-decker bus among the swamps of Okefenokee, Georgia. When she starts attending the labyrinthine Lewis Middle School, she hopes only to avoid her bully, Ezequio.However, after Jane discovers on the first day of school that her legal name is actually Ouishiouishiwocomoloceau (pronounced as in the book’s title), Ezequio smears mud on her face. Jane—now known as “Wishy-Wishy”—then finds that invoking her true name allows her to transform people into mythical creatures. As a result, Ezequio becomes a “squonk,” a pitiable beast who can’t stop weeping, hates the sun, and, oddly enough, reads Walt Whitman. Remorseful but unable to reverse the curse, Wishy-Wishy tries to adjust to middle school life by studying grammar with her only friend, the brilliant Indian foreign exchange student Adhyaksa, in a remedial English class taught by Principal Mathis. Mathis encourages students to get C’s, forces them to write shorthand in crayon, and tells bad jokes that strangely seem to make him shrink when he tells them. The fearsome Jabberwock, who’s long stalked children from Lewis Middle School’s Gifted and Talented Education program, perceives Adhyaksa’s intelligence and imagination and abducts her in order to steal her dreams. Newly friendless Wishy-Wishy tries to remember Adhyaksa when nobody else can while Spanish-language peer tutors, who may actually be Naga snakes, stalk her. This allusion-packed, lyrical, and thoroughly absurdist fantasy has aspects that some readers will find reminiscent of Louis Sachar’s Wayside Schoolbooks. However, something more romantic and experimental bubbles beneath its surface. Although toilet humor and one-off rhyming wordplay abound, other scenes ring with existential resonance, as when Ezequio mourns his dead mother’s lettuce preference or the Jabberwock monologues triumphantly about Principal Mathis’ growing financial debt. Each unpredictable reveal deepens the unreality, but Wishy-Wishy’s gradual mastery of her powers feels earned, and the book’s bracing balance of silliness, alliteration, and high stakes will engage readers.

A head-spinning yarn that captures the magic, horror, and silliness of late childhood.