(read at Pindari cabin, Yeranda Cottages, Dungog, 2-9 January 2024)
There was once a boy whose entire life was defined not by the good things in his life, and they were there in the form of a loving family, a rich engagement with learning and an overall garrulous love of life, but of the bad things; things like incessant bullying, scant friendships and a life situated at the heart of a church that while loving at times, could also be scornfully cold and viciously condemning.
For one so young, it was a great deal with which to contend and there were times, many times, when the boy wanted if would be able to beat the weight of things so terrible he couldn’t see an end to their number or their unbearable impact.
One bright light amidst the considerable gloom, however, was reading; the constant stream of books he mostly borrowed from the library and occasionally bought with hard earnt pocket money brought an escape from the harsh reality around him but more than that reminded him that there were lovely, caring people out there (beside his mum and dad and some friends and siblings) and that they could be capable of doing the sort of wondrously kind acts whose very idea seemed to be outside the small, cruel minds of his tormentors.
That young boy, if you haven’t already guessed, was this reviewer, and in books he found a salvation and a haven that not even religion could provide; reading The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer took me back to those days back in the ’70s and early ’80s where books weren’t just a nice-to-have, they were a must-have.
Without them, it’s hard to imagine how life could have been anything but desperately sad and disappointing, a sentiment shared by the book’s protagonist who found in books, and The Clock Island series by Jack Masterson in particular, a way to cope with a family situation which was as far from ideal as it was possible to get.
And there came that laugh again, the-devil’s-at-the-back-door-and-nobody-remembered-to-lock-it laugh.
‘You know what they say, my boy … be careful what you wish for.’
Lucy Hart, now all grown-up at 26 and a teacher’s aide in California where she is universally loved by the children and by her close friend, class teacher Theresa, grew up in a family where her parents made it patently clear she was not wanted.
Her older sick sister Angie was the only one who mattered, and after one particularly terrible bout of sickness, Lucy was packed off to her loving grandparents to live, but not before discovering Masterson’s series of some 65 books which talked of belonging and kindness and being brave to face the hard and difficult things in life.
Masterson’s books saved Lucy and they also saved seven-year-old Christopher, a boy who attends the school Lucy works at and who’s in foster care follow the drug overdose deaths of both parents.
After spending a week with Lucy in the immediate aftermath of his parents’ passing – he had been in the kindergarten class two years earlier where Lucy worked and the two formed an immediate bond – Lucy and Christopher grow even closer to the point where Lucy knows beyond a shadow of doubt that she wants to foster-to-adopt this remarkable, literate and adventurous young boy who’s still struggling to shake off the grief of losing his mum and dad.
But wanting something and getting it are two often wholly different things, and Lucy realises that earning an low wage, living in a share house and not having a car are not going to make her dream of becoming Christopher’s mum come true.
(Photo credit: Chanel Nicole Co. / courtesy official author site)
Then the miraculous happens.
Lucy is selected as one of four contestants chosen to compete for the sole copy of the latest and last Clock Island book – Masterson hasn’t released a book in years after producing four-to-five a year and so the new book is a BIG DEAL – and if she wins, it will mean all her and Christopher’s dreams can come true, sharks and all.
The Wishing Game is a beguiling and charmingly dark mix of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, any one of a number of meaningfully written rom-coms and a fairytale of the impossible becoming possible, and it succeeds on just about every level.
While there is a great deal of grief and loss in The Wishing Game, which doesn’t pretend life has easy solutions to very painful pasts and challenging here-and-nows, there’s also a delightfully wonderful hope that dares to imagine about what could happen if all your dreams could come true.
Much of that hope is drawn from characters who fully and richly realised and who, though they grapple with some fairly significant challenges, have to keep believing something good is going to come their way.
‘Makes no sense to me. How can you lose a daughter if you never had a kid?’
Andre looked at Lucy. ‘What about you?’
Lucy met Hugo’s eyes. ‘No idea,’ she said.
But she was lying.
She had a very good idea.
What really makes The Wishing Game such an inestimable joy to read, and it will make your heart swell even as it weeps with great sorrow at certain points, is how much love there is for the power of reading within its pages.
It’s clear that Schaffer not only loves books but is well experienced in how profoundly they can change you or can keep you alive and safe when so much around you means to do you harm, physically, emotionally or both, and she pours that lived experience into a story that is resolutely grounded and painfully real but also buoyed by the power of stories to shape your reality and to life your spirit when you are weighed down by life’s power to grind you into the dust.
Reading The Wishing Game is stark and uplifting reminder that while reading can’t always fix things, it can revive your spirit enough and equip with the tools you need to make it out of the abyss you’re in.
It still won’t be easy and though it’s clear that Lucy will get what she wants and needs, but delightfully to even close to how you think she will get them, The Wishing Game doesn’t suddenly wave a narrative magic wand and make everything better.
What it does do in ways that will make you smile and make your heart soar is remind in powerfully moving ways of the power of reading and how the stories of our childhood and the lessons and experiences they impart, can play a crucial role in who are as adults and how we face a very grown-up world and that we should value all those wonderful books we read as children because they might, in ways we can’t even see coming, transform our lives for the better and make the present every bit as good as wish it could be.