The Wish

Written by Beverly Lewis

Narrated by Christina Moore

Leona lost her best friend the day Gloria's family was expelled from the Amish church. When she receives an unexpected letter from Gloria, Leona makes up her mind go after her friend. To the alarm of her fiance, a deacon's son, she sets out on a mission to persuade Gloria to return to the Amish church. Will Leona's dearest wish lead to her own undoing? A compelling story of friendship from the top author in Amish fiction Leona Speicher got the "sister" she'd always dreamed of the day Gloria Gingerich and her family moved to Lancaster County Amish farmland. The Arkansas newcomers seem to be everything a devout Plain family should be, and Leona can't help comparing Gloria's engaging young parents to her own. Leona's cousin shows a romantic interest in Gloria around the same time as Gloria's older brother expresses his fondness for Leona--it seems likely the two young women will marry into each other's families, remaining close friends for life. Thus, Leona is shocked when the Gingeriches suddenly pack up and disappear after being expelled from the church for reasons no one will discuss. Despite Leona's pleas, Gloria goes with them, leaving more than one broken heart behind. When Gloria unexpectedly contacts Leona after a silence of several years, Leona makes up her mind to persuade her friend to return to Lancaster County and the Amish ways. Leona's fiance, the deacon's son, is alarmed when Leona decides to go after Gloria. Will Leona's dearest wish lead to her own undoing?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781501931352

Beverly Lewis

Beverly Lewis, born in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, has more than 19 million books in print. Her stories have been published in twelve languages and have regularly appeared on numerous bestseller lists, including the New York Times and USA Today. Beverly and her husband, David, live in Colorado, where they enjoy hiking, biking, making music, and spending time with their family. Visit her website at BeverlyLewis.com.

Reviews for The Wish

[Lisa Morris · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Easy listen! Great story of friendship standing the test of time. God's love and mercy and grace! Great narrators!

[Leslie Wolf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a beautiful story and I really enjoyed it!

[jbarr5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wish by Jake SmithWanted to read this book because it's about baseball and I miss the journey and dreams.This one is about a boy, Aaron who's no longer in remission. His dad, James has grown up playing baseball and is now a coach. Young daughter Lizzie and wife Emily are all surrounding Aaron at the hospital where they are able to live while he goes through his tests, chemo and hopefully more bone marrow transplants.Aaron immerses himself in baseball, stats-I love stats! To me it's his way of not forgetting his ordeal but coping with it that takes him away from the limelight to lose himself in. He gets a visit from a pro ball player and they get in-depth about the game and stats.Follows everyday life things that occur, praying to God and how each of them copes with their new routines.Love gift Aaron is able to give to his dad with the help of the ball player...makes you sad he had to give up his dream long ago..What a treat for me as never having gone to a ballpark. all behind the scenes are now open.After I learned what the wish really was i had to close the book, put it down and stop crying, so happy for them all...things like this just don't happen to regular people...X read! Love it when everybody comes together for a good cause.I received this book from Book Club Network (bookfun.org) in exchange for my honest review.

[amy_j-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Grab your tissues, you are going to need them. Wish is a heart warming story that takes you on one family's journey into the fight against childhood cancer and one young man's extraordinary wish. You will laugh, cry, and get angry (sometimes at the same time), but you will not want to put this one down until the very last word. *I received a copy in exchange for an honest review*

[kevin shumway · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was an extremely moving book of cherished love, forgiveness & faith.

[zoeschoppa · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Wish is a beautiful story. It is not overtly Christian but the reader understands that this is a believing family. I was ready to give this book a 5 star rating until I got to the section where Aaron asks his father what heaven would be like. This is what James said:“Well, I take that to mean that the place prepared for each of us is full of the things we loved when we were here. It’s not something untouchable or something we can’t understand.” James held out his hand for the baseball, and Aaron gently placed it in his open palm. “God’s there, of course. Which, I suppose, is really what makes it heaven. But also the things we love to do, the people we love I think our individual mansions in heaven are filled with those. Grandparents, friends, family, pets ”"God's there of course"??? WHAT!  This is disturbing. The view given above is a completely self-focused view made to provide comfort not truth.  We were not created for self edification.Why were we created? We were created for God's pleasure! Catch that...God's pleasure not ours.Revelation 4:11 says "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.""All things were created by him and for him." Colossians 1:16Are you looking at your salvation as a "get out of hell free pass"? That would greatly cheapen Christ's sacrifice for his children on the cross! Do you desire a heaven filled with the glory of God? A heaven in which we worship him day and night. That is the heaven that we were created for. To honor the creator and not the created.In Revelation 4 and 5 Paul gives us the vision the Lord gave him. A glimpse into the worship of heaven. Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,to receive power and wealth and wisdom and mightand honor and glory and blessing!"And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the seam and all this is in then, saying."To him who sits on the throne and to the Labbe blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!"And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped.Revelation 5:11-14 ESVSo many twists of the word of God. Jake Smith may be well intentioned but his "good" intentions paint a very inaccurate view of the Holy God of Scripture. God will not be mocked. Always remember that God demands that "you shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you." Deuteronomy 4:2 ESV

[Melissa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beverly Lewis writes such wholesome and God loving stories. I have never rea one that was not fantastic.

[Dotty Phillippi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Everything ? I thoroughly enjoy reading the books she writes

[melissarochelle_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Evie recommended this book to me and I think it blew her mind when I mentioned saying "pineapple" whenever her temper starts to rise. She didn't expect me to read it (I listened, but that counts). I loved the audiobook, the narrator adds just the right twang.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Too familiar to me; same plot and characters that so many other 'tween books have. Nice enough for less experienced/jaded readers, though. I do wonder how Jackie is going to turn out, though.

One flaw; author indicates that you can send a care package of home-made cookies to someone in jail. Nope. Can't even send books to any that I know, unless they come straight from Amazon.

The two main morals of the story are explicit:

"You can't judge people for the mistakes they make. You judge them for how they fix those mistakes."

"I wanted her easy way of making people love her. I wanted her knack for seeing the good in things."

[jennybeast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sweet, scrappy, kid lands in a better place kind of story. Charlie is full of fight and challenges, but she ends up in a small town in North Carolina with her aunt and uncle and family full of really nice friends down the road. She finds a dog to love, and a community that cares about her, and she knows more about wish traditions than you can imagine.

[raggedyme · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The book reads a little like a small southern town based Nancy Drew, but I would highly recommend it for any kid in a foster home or displaced situation. Its central theme is managing your feelings, love and hope.

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

children's middlegrade fiction (girl with dad in jail and mom with severe depression finds new home and friend living with aunt in rural NC)
abandoned on p. 52. This was ok, just seemed to be another story about a middlegrade girl needing someone to talk to. Her whole 'thing' is making wishes and knowing all the different ways you can make wishes, and in the very final chapter she gets her wish, and know what it is? Big surprise, it's to belong to a family. The book is perfectly fine and I bet many readers will enjoy it, but there's nothing to make it stand out amongst the other middlegrade novels out there.

[sgrame_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charlie Reese is a fiesty 11 year old whose first reaction to situations is usually a heated one. Her father is in a "correctional facility" and her mother has trouble functioning day-to-day. Charlie doesn't want to live with her Aunt Bertha and Uncle Gus in rural North Carolina and she certainly doesn't need a red-headed boy with an up/down walk to befriend her. She's made the same secret wish every day for forever and it's coming true does not have to do with living in that backwoods place. But as she catches and takes in a stray dog, and settles into the peace and comfort of being accepted and loved for who she is, Charlie begins to see the worth of unconditional love. This 227 page book would be good for a book discussion for grades 4-6.

[billsearth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Everyone likes a story about a person trying hard to fit in, gain friends, do the right thing, and succeed.
This story is about a girl whose family fell apart and who ended up in foster care and was turned over to her mother's sister's family. There she had to find and make new friends and fit into the customs of the new family. She made a wish every day, same wish. In the end she realized she had reached her wish. Along the way she learns to appreciate others who care, even if their backgrounds are much different than hers. She wants a dog. She works on that as well. She becomes pretty good at school and helps while being helped tutoring at school with her peers. Al of it takes a lot of effort but in the end she matures, fits in and the school system gains a loyal good student with good friends. A very nice story but she does have to struggle and there is homesickness, especially in the early half of the story.

[agrudzien_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charlie's dad, Scrappy, is in jail and her mom has to get her feet back on the ground and her head together before the state will let her live with her again...so she's in backwards Colby with her aunt and uncle instead of in Raleigh where she should be, so she wishes - every opportunity she gets. As she gets to know her aunt and uncle, makes a few friends and gets herself a stray dog for a pet Charlie realizes that what shes wishing for might look a little different than she planned.

Cute story - a little message heavy, but between Charlie's sassiness, her aunt's love, and the dog most girls will love this story.

[ewyatt_16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charlie has been making wishes daily. She's been moved out of her home to live with her aunt and uncle as her mom can't get out of bed and her dad is in a correctional facility. Her aunt and uncle are wonderful people, she meets a great friend named Howard, a former stray named Wishbone, and she is angry. As these relationships grow, her life starts to change.

[plnorris-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Charlie Reese finds herself living with an aunt and uncle whom she has never met. Charlie, who comes from a disfunctional family situation wishes for the love and acceptance in a normal family. Each day she wishes for this. As she begins to adjust to life with her aunt, uncle, and new friend Howard her anger seems to become more controled. Charlie also identifies with a stray dog in the community and is determined to make it her pet. Finally Charlie begins to feel accepted and part of a family.

[mrsdruffel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Charlie is an eleven-year-old girl who does not know what it is like to have a family that is “put together.” Her dad is in jail and her mother is uninvolved and distant. Charlie is sent to live with her aunt and uncle while her mother gets back on her feet. Charlie makes the same wish any chance she gets. But she cannot tell anyone the wish or it will not come true. Determined to make this time at her aunt and uncles short, Charlie is not invested in making friends or getting along with the teachers. Little does Charlie know, being sent away might just be the best thing that happened to her. A little love goes a long way.

It has taken me awhile to write this review. WISH was so epic, I was left speechless after finishing the book. WISH is powerful, loving, heart-warming, and inspiring. Barbara O’Connor uses this story to tug at the hearts of the reader. Charlie is a mess of a person, and yet, just a little love can go a long way. Being a teacher of students like Charlie, I was drawn to the emotion of the book, “wishing” all my students who deal with what Charlie deals with could be as lucky as Charlie to land with an amazing aunt and uncle. After reading this book, you will want to make Charlie a part of your family.