The Summer My Wishes Came True - Radhika Sanghain

 

Ayesha is very excited to spending two weeks of her summer holiday at camp with her best friend, Nikki - the pair have been inseparable for years. However, from the start, things don't go as Ayesha expected: Nikki arrives full of chat about her trip to New York, with a host of clothes that aren't the ones she and Nikki had agreed to take; then Ayesha begins to feel left out when Nikki seems to be favouring their new dorm mates and their love of fashion and musical theatre.  When she hears Nikki saying unkind things about her, she heads to the lake, upset, and lets out her feelings to the nature around her.  The following morning, Ayesha realises that everything she wishes for is coming true and she discovers that she has been gifted unlimited wishes.  At first, it's better food for lunch that she wishes for, but as Nikki drifts further away from her, could wishing for them to be best friends again be the solution?

Radhika's books are always a great read and are popular in school (you can read my reviews here: The Girl Who Couldn't Lie; How To Get Magically Popular) so I was excited to read The Summer My Wishes Came True.

The book has all the ingredients for the perfect read: a summer camp setting with cabins, a lake, camp fires and preparations for an end of camp production.  With friendship issues, and a hint of magic thrown in for good measure.

Ayesha is so excited about heading to camp; it's something she's been looking forward to for a long time and she and Nikki have spent a long time planning every detail.  However, when Nikki comes back from a trip to New York with her dad and her stepmum, everything seems to have changed, and Ayesha doesn't like the new Nikki.  The wishes come at exactly the right time, but the wishes don't necessarily have the effect she wants.  

This is a wonderful book about friendship and discovering that what you want and what you actually need may be two very different things. 

Out now, The Summer My Wishes Came True is a perfect book for the school summer holidays. 

Helping Hero - Nicci Johnson

Pres is having a difficult time of things: leaving foster carers to go and live with her Aunty Janelle means moving to Birmingham, starting a new school and giving up riding, the thing she loves the most. But when she stumbles across Stableheart, a stables in the heart of the city, she meets Hero, a rescue horse, and this could be just what she and Hero need.

Pres really does feel very alone at the start of the book. She was put into foster care when she was very young and can barely remember her mum. Now she has been uprooted from her foster carers to live with an aunt she doesn't know, and it means that every part of her life has to change. School in the city is completely different and overwhelming which is why she runs off one afternoon and stumbles across the stables. Before long, the stables have contacted the school asking for volunteers to help out and Pres is one of the students chosen. It becomes evident that she has a way with horses and she and Hero bond immediately which helps her to begin to make sense of everything. But when her Mum wants to see her, that throws everything back in the air again.

Helping Hero is a lovely story, perfect for animal fans, about discovering yourself and finding the space to make sense of the world. It's a gentle story that deftly weaves themes such as depression, friendships and being in care into the plot in a way that readers will understand. I really enjoyed it.