Griffin Penshine believed in wishes; she made them all the time. Good wishes to help her
grandma feel better, silly wishes to make her school smell like chocolate chip cookies, and
personal wishes—becoming an amazing bass guitarist. Then she meets Mariah, possibly
the oldest woman in the entire world, and Griffin’s life is turned upside down.
Mariah hands Griffin a "lucky penny" that is anything but lucky. It’s part of a set of
eleven pennies snatched from the water right after their owners had wished upon them. Stolen
wishes that bestow a terrible curse upon their guardian. And that guardian is now Griffin,
the new Wish Stealer.
Griffin learns the three rules to being a wish stealer: all her good wishes will not come
true, all her evil wishes will come true, and if she tells someone, none of that
person’s wishes will ever come true. She watches helplessly as catastrophe results from her
most recent wishes. It’s one thing when school begins to smell like rotting lilies. It’s
quite another when Grandma winds up in the hospital. Griffin must find a way to reverse
the curse. But how?
Author Tracy Trivas does an outstanding job of drawing us into Griffin’s world as we watch
her navigate the normal traumas of middle school, now complicated even more by the cursed
pennies. The Wish Stealers is a quick, but exciting read, guaranteed to hold the
attention of tween girls.