{"id":39375,"date":"2024-03-17T21:09:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T01:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=39375"},"modified":"2024-03-17T21:09:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T01:09:29","slug":"review-of-billy-miller-makes-a-wish-by-kevin-henkes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=39375","title":{"rendered":"Review of Billy Miller Makes a Wish, by Kevin Henkes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Billy Miller Makes a Wish<\/em><\/p>\n

by Kevin Henkes<\/p>\n

Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), 2021. 179 pages.
\nReview written April 29, 2021, from a library book
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

I like it when beginning chapter books feature characters and situations that match the age of the child who will be reading them. Billy Miller Makes a Wish<\/em> captures second-grade situations and concerns beautifully.<\/p>\n

The book opens with the wish from the title:<\/p>\n

When Billy Miller blew out the eight candles on his birthday cake, he made a wish. He wished that something exciting would happen.<\/p>\n

Not more than ten minutes later \u2013 even before the present opening had begun \u2013 a police car and an ambulance flew past Billy\u2019s house and raced down the block. The wail of sirens stopped nearby.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Billy\u2019s old neighbor ends up dying, he feels awfully guilty about his wish. Even when assured that Mr. Tooley was old and sick and was going to die soon anyway and it had nothing to do with Billy\u2019s wish, more exciting-but-bad things start to happen.<\/p>\n

Billy\u2019s best friend is on a trip for the summer and so he\u2019s got a lot of time with his family \u2013 including his four-year-old sister, Sal. I love the way Sal is portrayed, so lovable but so annoying. She decides to make \u201cSymphony Cards\u201d to give the family of their neighbor who died \u2013 using Billy\u2019s new birthday markers. And then she doesn\u2019t actually want to let the family have them. And that\u2019s only the beginning.<\/p>\n

This book is a quick read, but it will keep you smiling. I like how creatively Kevin Henkes came up with exciting things to happen to Billy, in answer to his wish.<\/p>\n

kevinhenkes.com<\/a>
\nharpercollinschildrens.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I\u2019m posting the oldest reviews I\u2019ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They\u2019re still good books!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Miller Makes a Wish by Kevin Henkes Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), 2021. 179 pages. Review written April 29, 2021, from a library book Starred Review I like it when beginning chapter books feature characters and situations that match the age of the child who will be reading them. Billy Miller Makes a Wish captures second-grade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,10,21,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beginning-chapter-books","category-childrens-fiction-review","category-contemporary","category-starred-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43463,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39375\/revisions\/43463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}