There’s nothing new about a plot with wishes. Plenty of books use this familiar strategy to entice readers. The difficult part is making it unique and engaging.

WAND has accomplished that feat with a story full of surprising twists and turns. At its core is a girl wanting to feel a part of a family. Something she lost when her dad died.

Eleven-year-old Mira has had to change schools and give up gymnastics. She lives with her two younger stepsisters and Val, a stepmom who only seems to care that Mira does the cleaning and cooking. There’s also the unforgivable thing that Val did, keeping Mira from ever calling her Mom.

The wishes enter the story when Mira meets a mysterious girl named Lyndame, who appears out the woods in this Georgia setting. She has a wand that will grant Mira three wishes.

From there it turns into a page turning, magic filled ride where the unexpected unfolds in each chapter. I can’t give away any more so that readers can experience the enchanting tale on their own.

FIVE MORE THINGS TO LIKE ABOUT: WAND by Landra Jennings

1. Ten-year-old Sara and four-year-old Beans are not just background characters. They surprisingly stick with Mira and provide the needed support she always hoped for in a family.
2. Mira’s plight of not having a biological connection to any living person is heartbreaking, but the resolution mends that wound.
3. Val doesn’t seem like the best step-mom until Mira disappears in the mysterious Glass Pond. A perfect character arc.
4. Sometimes you find the love of family and belonging in the most unexpected ways. It comes to light in the adventurous second half of the novel.
5. The other worlds were marvelously crafted. You could visualize exactly what they looked like from the written word.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Landra Jennings is a Greenville, South Carolina-based writer, author of middle-grade fantasy novels The Whispering Fog and the forthcoming Wand (October 2023) published by HarperCollins Clarion Books. She holds an MBA from Northwestern University and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University in Minneapolis where she won the Anne Tews Schwab Scholarship for Excellence in Critical Writing and the Walden Pond Press Scholarship in Middle Grade Fiction and Non-Fiction. She is passionate about encouraging a love of reading and writing in children. Connect with her on www.landrajennings.com or on Instagram @landrajennings.  

****************************************

COMMENTS ARE WELCOME BELOW!

BE SURE TO VISIT OTHER BLOGGERS ON TODAY’S MARVELOUS MIDDLE GRADE MONDAY