4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Return to Sender' Review: Wishes by Mail
What if you could have anything you wished for? The author-illustrator Vera Brosgol puts a contemporary spin on the classic setup in 'Return to Sender,' her delightful novel for middle-grade readers. Seasoned fans of fairy tales and fables will anticipate the fantastical wish-granting ahead, but our story actually starts with real-life wish fulfillment of a more conventional kind: inheriting New York City real estate.
When a great-aunt leaves 10-year-old Oliver Bakh and his mom her Manhattan apartment, their change in fortune couldn't have come at a better time. Ever since Oliver's dad died the previous year, Oliver and his mom have been bouncing from one distant relative's home to the next. Like all New York City apartments, this one has its quirks—in this case, a mail slot built into a wall, leading to nowhere. But as Oliver accidentally discovers, the mail slot can grant the apartment's owners anything they wish for: Write down a wish, feed it into the slot, and soon step-by-step typewritten instructions for making the wish come true will arrive.
Ms. Brosgol has a sharp eye for both class dynamics and the way that social media can exacerbate adolescent (and indeed, adult) envy. Oliver attends a prestigious private school thanks to the tuition discount his mom receives for working there as a custodian. Among the children of New York's elite, Oliver stands out for all the wrong reasons. While Oliver's wishes start out small enough—pizza for dinner, a new pair of sneakers—they inevitably increase in scope. 'His classmates had inherited money,' Oliver reasons. 'He'd inherited wishes. It would be wrong to waste them.'
In 'Return to Sender,' each wish comes with a cascade of reality-changing consequences. Ms. Brosgol has previously written and illustrated graphic novels and picture books—including 'Anya's Ghost' (2011) and 'Leave Me Alone!' (2016)—and one of the many charms of this book are her black-and-white cartoons punctuating the pages. These are an especially effective and entertaining way of showing the unexpected events that Oliver's wishes set in motion.
