A THANKSGIVING WISH
By Michael J. Rosen
Illustrated by John Thompson
Scholastic, 1999
Category: Picture book fiction
It’s all about wishbones around here these days. Here is the problem: we have one thoroughly dried and ready to snap wishbone from our Thanksgiving turkey … and three snappers clamoring for it. While we were working out a fair solution to this dilemma the other day the book A THANKSGIVING WISH sprang out of the recesses of my brain. Didn’t I have a book about a grandmother who saved wishbones year round? Wasn’t it a Thanksgiving book? Why hadn’t we read it this year?
The answers to these questions are: yes I do have a book about a grandmother who saves wishbones all year; yes it is a Thanksgiving book; and we hadn’t read it because I had not yet pulled out the box of Thanksgiving books. (Ahem, well, they are out now and we are enjoying them a great deal, thank you very much. Late is better than never.)
So, I read A THANKSGIVING WISH to my daughter before school and the two of us had a good cry together. (Okay, I cried. She comforted.) This is one of the most touching holiday books I have ever read. Every year Bubbe collects wishbones so that when her grandchildren arrive to celebrate Thanksgiving each will have a wishbone of her own (smart woman!). When Bubbe passes away, her children and grandchildren assemble to celebrate Thanksgiving as usual, but nothing is the same. Rosen’s storytelling, Thompson’s artistry, and Bubbe’s Thanksgiving wish make for an unforgettable book.
As for our wishbone dilemma, we have devised a happy solution. My daughter will bring our single wishbone to show-and-tell tomorrow, and her brothers will be allowed to snap it later in the day. Oh, and I have promised to collect wishbones year round, like Bubbe. Here’s hoping I remember to pull the collected wishbones—and this book—out before December next year!