The Wish Stealers

Griffin Penshine makes wishes every chance she gets. Then a slightly scary womand gives her a "lucky" penny and box, and curses her as a wish stealer. Inside the box are eleven pennies, all stolen from a wishing fountain when the old woman was just a girl. They are all labeled with the original wish, and some even have the names of the wishers. Griffin has to return these wishes to their owners or none of her good wishes will ever come true again, only her negative ones.<br /><br />This is a really sweet book for middle grad readers. Griffin is a great lead complete with flaws. She isn't perfect, she makes mistakes like we all do, but she learns from them and tries hard to make them right. <br /><br />Griffin has an arch nemesis at school named Samantha, who always makes fun of her. Samantha is jealous of Griffin's friendship with Garrett, the cutest boy in their class. Griffin's relationship with Garrett is full of the ups and downs of real friendship, including some hints at a first crush. <br /><br />Griffin learns a lot about wish stealers-those who make fun of others' dreams and try to discourage them. She even finds herself being a wish stealer when she gets really angry with Samantha, even though she later regrets it. But as she tries to give all eleven wishes back to their owners, she learns even more about making your own wishes come true, not with luck, but by working for it. <br /><br />There are lots of characters in this book and it's great to see it all come together nicely. Each chapter ends with a great quote about wishes. I've never seen chapters end with quotes, I've only seen quotes at the beginning of chapters. But this way was great because yhou could tell how the quote worked perfectly with the rest of the chapter. <br /><br />This was a fantastic book for the young and not so young, with awesome advice for everyone in how to hold onto your wishes and dreams. <br /><br />reviewed for: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://inthehammockblog.blogspot.com/">http://inthehammockblog.blogspot.com/</a><br /><br />

Where do I begin? First of all, no one wears a cashmere sweater on the first day of school in Kansas. Ticky-tac? No. A good author would have researched. We wore tank tops and cut-off shorts. It’s hot on the first day of school.<br /><br />Characters = zzzz Streoptypical. No personality. <br /><br />Plot = lame. Stolen wishes had to be returned or the young protagonist (Griffen) was doomed! Boring. <br /><br />Not only was this book mired in forced dialogue - the plot was forced too! Griffen always bumped into her foes at random places. Like meeting her them in the local art supply store, and the bakery--and no one had a very good reason to be there. <br /><br />And then there were the thirteen-year-old “texting” references.....I always think you “lame up” your book with any modern tech references. Woudln't they FB anyway? <br /><br />Finally, I have to laugh. The setting of this book was a town 20 min from Topeka. NO town 20 min from Topeka - with the exception of Lawrence -- has a an art supply store and a bakery. If you're going to have some real locations - make the others real too. <br /><br />This one was painful. If you love YA, and hated this book, friend me to see better reads on my reading list.

Th is book is very good. I loved the growth of Griffin and how she realizes what is most important. The ending is very good.

Ah, I wasn’t expecting much from this book because my interest sort of waned for reading it and it’s been on my to-read list forever. So I decided a good way to lessen the numbers was to use them in my challenge. So this is an A-Z challenge book.<br /><br /><i>The Wish Stealers</i> is a fun, quick-paced, insightful, and warm-hearted tale of a girl growing up and wanting to do what’s right. But most of all, it’s to get people to follow their dreams, to strive for things even if they seem difficult or out of reach. It takes a really unique approach by taking the common remembered action of wishing on a penny and throwing it into a fountain into something more. These become actual wishes and you can actually steal them and incur bad luck or a curse on yourself.<br /><br />I thought this was a really neat way to play on the old habit and thought it was pretty nifty. Griffin is a sweet, optimistic girl who tries her hardest and I ended up enjoying her voice. I liked the friendship she has with the boy in her class (forgot his name at the moment) and the misunderstandings they work through. The very very vague hints at puppy love are cute.<br /><br />I’d say this is a good book to give someone younger as it’s quite happy and upbeat with subtle messages about life.

A cute little book about a middle-school girl, Griffin, who tries to return stolen wishes to their rightful owners before an evil curse catches up with her. <br /><br />The plot is okay, but predictable and not exactly mind-blowing. The characters are good, but not really memorable. The writing is adequate, but nothing special. <br /><br />I did like the theme about fighting off the evil inside of us, and not letting our anger or our circumstances turn us into a bad person. There's some great little lessons about good and evil, light and darkness, as Griffin thinks carefully about what it means to embrace the right and reject the evil in our lives.<br /><br />One thing that I really liked about this book is that both of Griffin's parents are in the picture, talking to her, giving advice, showing up, and being a family. In so many books, children have no parents or only one parent or an absent parent, because it forces the protagonist to be more independent. It was lovely to see a normal healthy family that all get along, and support and love one another. It added so much depth to the plot and characters!

This book was so cute! The concept of the story was so smart. Griffin was such a good character to relate to, and I love her story. Garret and her family and other friends were great too. Samantha was so rude, ugh. I got recommended this from my youth pastor and loved it so much! Great book for all the ages, and loved the moral of looking to friends for help, and being nice to others.<br /><br /> I give it a 4.5 out of 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨And age rating: 10+<br /><br /> Happy reading! ??

The book was pretty interesting; I just wish there was maybe a better sequel.

When I was a kid, I always wondered what happened to the coins that people tossed into fountains. I wanted to believe in the magic, but the more practical side of me wondered if someone came along and cleaned out all those coins...and I also wondered what happened to them. I never could shake the idea that if someone took the coins out of the fountain, something bad would happen. This is the fabulous premise in The Wish Stealers, and I was very excited to get my hands on a copy. <br /><br />I wish the characters and plot had lived up to the premise, though. I liked Griffin, but the other characters weren't as fleshed out. Samantha becomes Griffin's arch-rival for no good reason, and her appearances throughout the story seem too convenient. Like she's only there to create tension, and that made her very 2-dimensional. <br /><br />I also wish the light/dark objects in Mariah's box and Grandma's box had been explored or explained. Same with the Shakespeare witches. A connection to Mariah and Grandma is implied, but not clear. <br /><br />Lastly, many of the story's events didn't ring true to me. While the author clearly did some research, I think she could have done more. As in, you don't look at constellations through a telescope (they are too big and can see them with the naked eye, so you look at individual stars or planets through a telescope). In Kansas, you don't wear cashmere in August (it's *way* too hot). The price of garnets, even unusually large ones, isn't high unless there's some diamonds in the setting. Etc. <br /><br />Perhaps I'd set my expectations too high in the beginning, but this wasn't a book I enjoyed. It didn't have enough depth for my taste, and came across as a bit preachy. That said, younger kids may enjoy this as a light and fun read, and it may spark their own imaginations as to what happens if you take a wish-coin out of a fountain...

This was a fun book full of advice that wasn't too preachy. The premise was different. Usually you get to have three wishes-- be careful what you wish for. This book has people who steal wishes. If you wish something evil on someone, it will come true. So, that was fun. **stop here for spoilers** Young Griffin Penshine visits an old antique store and meets a lady who tricks her into taking a whole box of pennies. They are wishes that people made and threw them into the fountain. She would listen to their wishes and go and gather them out of the fountain- stealing their wishes. She even wrote down some of the names and wishes. Griffin has a habit of wishing things often. It takes her a while to get out of the habit of wishing. Because with her new pennies, she is the wish stealer. She doesn't want to steal wishes. She learns that she can give back the wishes. So she does. She tries to make people's wishes come true by giving them a matching wish. She also meets a nice boy at school and they work together on a school science project. She plays bass guitar, and takes art lessons with her grandmother. Her mother is pregnant and has a new baby boy at the end of the book. She has normal problems with middle school-- she is going into 6th grade. There is a mean popular girl. All the normal problems. <br /> Fun, lighthearted, a quick read. Students will like it. Worth the read. I liked the little sayings at the end of each chapter. Each quote really applied to the current problem in Griffin's life. Not to preachy, but relevant.

An amazing book in my opinion! I couldn't let go of this book! i kept reading on and on! It's about a girl named Griffin. At a shop an old lady gives her a box of 11 indian pennies that has labels on them. Griffin soon discoveres a note that came from the old lady that gave her the box. She was cursed to be now a Wish stealer. So every bad wish that she wishes come true and her good wishes don't come true. So she frets at school, and gets very upset. She doesn't want to become a wish stealer but hope others wish will come true. At the first day of school Griffin makes a school rival named Samantha. Samantha are the girls that likes to make others feel low, and can't be better than her. A lot of the times Samantha angers Griffin which made her wish bad things. She soon learns and restrains her self from wishing bad thigs. So one day Griffin's english teacher that has so much enthusiasm of shakespear introduce these witch ladies that are actresses. Griffin asked to look into their spell book and saw how to undo the cursed she was fated to have with. So this journey takes Griffin to give back peoples' wishes.