Be careful what you wish for . . . Becky Seville is excited when she finds her hard-to-buy-for family the perfect Christmas gift: a self-help book about using positive thinking to make dreams come true. All they have to do is write their greatest wishes at the front of the book and then follow the instructions. She even buys a copy for herself to get a date with her gorgeous new neighbor. Her family agrees that this year is going to be different;...

"A coin for passage to your heart's desire," says Agnes, Guardian of the Wishing Well in the village of Bishop Mayne. "That is the first rule." But Nuria doesn't think she needs a wish. Wishing on the Well is dangerous. Wishes often go wrong. That's why there are no other children around. A wish-gone-wrong took them all away. But now, because her grandfather, the Avy, has wished for them to come back, Nuria is sure that the one thing she wants --...

Three bored sisters on a rainy afternoon make wish after wish- for the rain to stop, to play in the puddles- something, anything. Capturing their attention, their grandmother recounts a mesmerizing childhood memory of a magical night long ago when secret wishes came true. She relates what happened when Ying-ying was seven and celebrating the Moon Festival in China. On that long-ago night of the Moon Festival, she encountered...

"On his eighth birthday, Billy Miller wishes for something exciting to happen. None of his wishes are answered the way he expects, but he does have lots of surprises--and the final one is possibly the best one ever" --