Wish

Joseph Monninger’s Wish, a poignant book about how much we are willing to risk to make someone we love happy, is on the Texas Lone Star Reading List 2012. The story is narrated by Bee, the older, caring sister of Tommy, a young boy with cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a serious disease that causes Tommy’s lungs to fill up with mucus which makes it hard for him to breathe. Tommy is infatuated with sharks – he knows all the facts about sharks and their attacks on humans. Bee, Tommy, and their single mother (as interested in men as Tommy is in sharks) are on a trip from their home in New Hampshire to California because Tommy has been given an all expense trip to see sharks by the Blue Moon foundation. Unfortunately, his wish to actually swim with the sharks isn’t fulfilled and his mother decides to go on a date that evening. When their mother still hasn’t returned from her date the next morning, Bee and Tommy decide to visit Ty, a young man that Tommy befriended through e-mail after Ty was attacked by a great white shark and lived to tell about his ordeal. Ty and his younger brother offer to take the two surfing in the dangerous waves. Bee knows this is really something Tommy wants to do despite the threat to his health. Although this is Tommy’s wish, the ocean and her inhabitants are unforgiving…