What do You think about The Well-Wishers (1990)?
Awesome, as usual. This and Magic or Not? are probably my favourite in the series. There's that chill you get when the coincidences stack up and you debate with yourself whether there was magic or not? Plus the old world charm is, well, perfectly charming.Unfortunately, James, Kip and Laura were hardly in the this book. However, I enjoyed Gordy and Dicky's growing-up, and love Lydia to bits, so it was alright. Surprisingly, there was no mention of Deborah's strange low voice, and she seems almost normal in this book except for a few instances where she starts talking about squirrels or something. I liked how weird she was. Weird baby. Anyway, the different voices Eager wrote in were pretty cool, but it kind of excluded the rest when the 'I' was used. Especially since they seemed to have an adventure each of their own here. It's sad that they're all growing up. (view spoiler)[ reminds me of Narnia, when Peter's the first to doubt its existence. (hide spoiler)]
—Elfear
Once again, Eager has done a great job of portraying some very realistic kids, both in how they act and in how they think. This was a nice story about kids doing nice things for other people. James was certainly amusing as a character, especially as he thought himself a man at the end of the book. Eager does a good job of providing an entertaining story as well as things for grown-ups to chuckle at.Rating: G.*SMALL SPOILER AHEAD*So it took me some thinking to understand what was different about the new family. Because of my own cultural/temporal lens, I was thinking the family must have been Hispanic or Arabic. When I realized the book was written back in the '50s, I realized that they must have been black. I really liked the reaction of one of the children (Lydia, I think?) who, upon seeing the new family said simply, "is that what all the fuss is about?"
—Brad
(This is the same as my review of Magic or Not)Edward Eager was one of my favorite authors when I was a child. However, I only read Magic or Not and its sequel, The Well Wishers once or twice. (The others I read countless times!)What I liked about Eager's other books was that magical adventures befell ordinary children living in ordinary neighborhoods in the United States. But in Magic or Not the very existence of magic is very ambiguous. In fact, the characters themselves aren't sure whether the wishing well is granting their wishes or if each successful outcome is the result of coincidence. And that's not what I was hoping for when I read these books as a child.Having now reread both books as an adult, I'm revising my original opinion of them upwards -- but by only a little. I can appreciate the author's attempt to do something different from the rest of his canon, and from my adult point of view, I definitely see a supernatural touch in both books. And most of the elements I've always loved in Eager's books are still there. But for me they still lack the exuberance of his previous works. And I am glad that the author went back to form in his last book, Seven Day Magic.
—CatholicBibliophagist
