13 Gifts: A Wish Novel

Written by Wendy Mass

Narrated by Kathleen McInerney

Welcome back to Willow Falls, where anything is possible and nothing is as it seems!

It doesn't take long for Tara Brennan to realize that breaking into school to steal a goat is not a good idea. As punishment for her crimes, Tara's parents send her to the sleepy town of Willow Falls to stay with relatives she hardly knows, including her strange younger cousin Emily. Tara quickly learns that Emily isn't even remotely the strangest person in town. There's a boy who sings at the bottom of an empty pool, two best friends who use blackboards to communicate, and a girl who may or may not be dating the world's hottest teen movie star.Due to another lapse in judgment, Tara finds herself beholden to perhaps the strangest person of all: Angelina D'Angelo. If Tara can't collect thirteen mysterious objects for the old woman in time for her thirteenth birthday, the consequences will be REALLY BAD. With a big dose of birthday magic, Tara's adventures take her and her new friends to places they never thought they'd find, some in the real world, and a lot deep inside themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scholastic Audio Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9780545437035

Wendy Mass

Wendy Mass is the New York Times bestselling author of The Candymakers series, Bob, and many other novels for young readers, including the Schneider Family Book Award-winner A Mango-Shaped Space, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (which was made into a feature film), Every Soul a Star, Pi in the Sky, the Twice Upon a Time series, and the Willow Falls series that began with 11 Birthdays. She and her family live in New Jersey.

[maggie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved the book it was interesting and wonderful!

[Melody · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Love this narrator Kathleen McInerny is a great narrator great voice

[Jon Inrus · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

well written with clever links between characters.
loved it
also - clearly read with emotion and an easy accent to understand.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rounded up because young me would have loved this, and perhaps even figured out how to make a friend. Longer than I remembered, but nbd. Glad I'm finally reading the whole series.

[amandabock-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've been meaning to read a Wendy Mass book for a while, and this was a suitable introduction. It was very enjoyable, with likable characters, a smidge of fantasy (the kind you hope really exists in the world), and a touch of romance. I will be recommending it to 10-13 year-olds who are ready for more nuanced stories about friendships, but not quite ready for the raw world of YA.

[bigorangemichael_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

After a failed attempt to steal a stuffed goat from the vice principal's office ends in the vice principal getting pepper-sprayed and soon-to-be-thirteen-year-old Tara suspended for the final two weeks of the year (in an attempt to fit in with other kids her age, Tara refuses to give up her accomplices), Tara is exiled to the small town of Willow Falls to spend her summer. This is instead of going with her parents to Madagascar to study the lemur, something she had been looking forward to doing.

Tara's luck goes from bad worse to when she's robbed of the money her parents gave her for the summer and her mother's prized iPod while on the train to the Willow Falls. Not wanting to admit the failure to her parents or her aunt and uncle, Tara takes matters into her own hands, stealing a rare issue of The Fantastic Four from her uncle's collection and trying to sell it at the local curiosity shop. The mysterious proprietor refuses to buy it because she can't pay what the comic is worth and she's the one who sold to her uncle. Instead, Tara is forced to accept a deal where she collects 13 different items from the people of the town and brings them to the store before her thirteenth birthday. If she does that, all will be forgotten. If not, her uncle will be made aware of her theft.

Until this point, Tara has been the kind of girl who is willing to shrink into the background. Since her only experience of trying to fit in involved the theft of a goat, she's not exactly eager to try fitting in again. But she soon finds a group of friends in Willow Falls who are not only willing to stand by her but also to help her find all thirteen items on the list and even to pull off something a bit more magical for the small town and Tara.

13 Gifts is a fun young adult novel with an intriguing first-person narrator and some interesting twists and turns. I listened to this one as an audio book and it helped the miles go by a bit more happily as I jogged and helped pass the time as I did chores around the house. Wendy Mass throws in some intriguing mysteries to Tara's visit to Willow Falls and pays all of them off by the novel's end.

From my understanding this is the third in a series of novels set in Willow Falls. And while there are callbacks to previous novels, the novel is self-contained enough that you can read it without feeling lost if you missed the first two. I will say that having listened to this one, I'm intrigued enough by the characters and the setting to want to try another in the series.

[jmbridger_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A third book in Wendy Mass' Willow Falls series that intertwines characters from her other two books with Tara, a teen who has been sent to her parents' hometown as a punishment when she gets into trouble at school.

[brangwinn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As the other two in the series, this is a fun story to read. I enjoy how much each birthday girl learns as she has to complete the jobs in her birthday assignment. It is not necessary to read the other books in the series to enjoy this book

[francescadefreitas · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I listened to this without knowing it was the third is a series, but I didn't notice any strange gaps, it all felt like part of the weirdness of Willow Falls.
Tara's parents, who rarely let her out of their sight, suddenly send her to stay with barely known relatives for the summer. This seems like a realistic story, but a mysterious woman blackmails Tara to find thirteen objects before her thirteenth birthday, and Tara finds the the town of Willow Falls becoming odder by the moment.
With its gentle magical realism, I enjoyed Tara's story, and even though the events of the book were unrealistic, her responses and actions felt true to me.

[ctmstast · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book "13 Gifts" by Wendy Mass is an amazing book. It's all about a girl named Tara who has to brake into her school and take her principal's goat in order for her to sit at the "popular" table at lunch. She gets caught and is supposed to leave for Madagascar in a few days. She ends up getting sent to a strange little town called Willow Falls. She stays with her aunt, uncle, Emily, and their butler Roy. Tara finds herself in the hands of an old women named Angelina. She makes Tara find thirteen random items all around town. If she doesn't find them within a month, it leads to some bad things. Tara does run into a lot of bad things but always makes it through.
"13 Gifts" is a good fun book to read. It's all about growing up and facing problems no matter how bad. You can make it through with friends or without. It's all about growing up and getting through the hardest problems in life. It's a fun interesting book for everyone and everyone to enjoy. I recommend it to everyone that is into mysterious adventures.