The Wish Giver
Paperback cover
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| Author | Bill Brittain |
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| Illustrator | Andrew Glass |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Children's book |
| Publisher | Harper & Row |
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Publication date
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1983 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 181 pp |
| ISBN | (First edition) |
| OCLC | 9080819 |
| LC Class | PZ7.B78067 Wi 1983 |
The Wish Giver: Three Tales of Coven Tree is a 1983 young adult or children's book by Bill Brittain. The "wish giver" in the title refers to the enigmatic man who gives three children a wish to make their deepest dreams come true, but the wishes are not worded carefully, and go horribly wrong. The plot structure and moral of the book are strikingly similar to those of the traditional Faust legend and W. W. Jacobs's short story "The Monkey's Paw."
The Wish Giver was the recipient of a Newbery Honor citation in 1984.
The narrator Stewart Meade (nicknamed "Stew Meat"), meets a strange man named Thaddeus Blinn in a carnival tent and notices something unusual about him. Stew Meat sees that there are three children in the tent who he recognizes as Polly, Rowena, and Adam. Blinn sells each of them a card with a red spot on it, for only 50 cents each, explaining that all they have to do is to press their finger on the red spot and say their wish and it will come true – exactly as they tell it.
Polly, an 11-year-old tomboy, loves to play with bullfrogs and her only two friends. Polly wishes to be popular, have the school's popular girls, Agatha and Eunice, to be friends with her and invite her over for a little tea party in which they would pretend to talk like real ladies. The wish is granted, but now she croaks like a frog when she says vain mean words about other people. Her sudden croaking in the middle of class causes her to become the center of attention – amid much grins and guffaws – at her school. Agatha and Eunice invite her over, but she learns during her visit that the girls are snobbish and unlikable people, and they only invited her to ridicule her for her croaking. She realizes that if she had not spoken whispers to her classmates, she could have easily become friends with them.
Rowena makes a wish about Henry Piper, a traveling salesman she is infatuated with, but only sees three times a year, that he will "set roots down in Coven Tree and never leave again!" The wish is fulfilled word-for-word: Henry's feet become literally rooted to the ground, and he gradually transforms into a sycamore tree. Rowena founds out that Henry never really liked her, and only pretended to like her so that her father would buy more of his items. She also grows a liking for the family worker, Sam Waxman who helps her throughout the situation with Henry.
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