The Seventh Wish

2016’s The Seventh Wish is a novel for middle-grade readers by children’s author Kate Messner. Messner infuses what is otherwise a highly realistic portrayal of the life of a 7th grader with a bit of fantasy – in the form of a retelling of the magical fish fairytale “The Fisherman and His Wife.” The novel has gotten praise from both educators and readers for its sensitive but direct and honest approach to the subject of drug abuse, but this content has also gotten the novel banned from some elementary and middle school libraries.

Our protagonist is 12-year-old Charlie, a 7th grader who has a loving and caring family, but who sometimes feels overlooked as the younger sibling of a sister who has just gone away to college. Charlie’s passion is Irish Step dancing, and when the first chapter opens, she is thrilled that her first dancing competition is coming up soon. The special dress she needs to participate is expensive, and to raise money for buying one Charlie spends the winter ice fishing and selling the fresh catch to neighborhood restaurants.

One day, when she is out on the ice with her friend Drew and his grandmother, Charlie hooks a small fish with sparkling green eyes that begs for its life and offers to grant her wishes in exchange. Dubious, Charlie decides to test out the fish’s claims and wishes to stop being so terrified of being out on the ice. At once, the fish jumps back into the water and Charlie is no longer scared of the middle of the lake. Thrilled with the discovery of this magical fish, Charlie comes back to the lake over and over again to find the fish and make more wishes.



But wishing is hard. The fish takes everything she says literally. Charlie has a hard time concentrating when staring into the fish’s eyes, and there is no way to predict whether even selfless wishes will end up benefiting or annoying their recipient.

At first, the misunderstandings are quite comical. Charlie wishes that Roberto Sullivan would pay attention to her – but the magic instead affects the less dreamy Robert O’Sullivan! Charlie wishes for her buddy Drew to have an excellent basketball team tryout. But after Drew makes the team, Charlie realizes that he was hoping not to be picked – he hates sports and would rather continue his computer science activity. Next Charlie tries to help out her friend Dasha, who is in ESL classes at school. Unfortunately, while Dasha does test out of ESL, her language skills aren’t actually any better and she struggles to keep up in regular classes. Finally, Charlie wishes for her mom to get the new job that she has been working hard toward. When her mom does end up with the new position, it has much more stressful demands on her mom’s time – so much so that Charlie ends up missing a key Irish dance competition.

The book takes a turn when Charlie’s next wish is for her sister Abby to come home from college for the weekend. Charlie idolizes Abby and deeply misses her, and it’s clear that Abby feels the same. But during the weekend, Abby mysteriously collapses and ends up in the hospital. When Charlie visits her there, she notices odd bruises on her sister’s arms. Slowly, Charlie learns that Abby is a heroin addict.



The novel’s straightforward and unflinching narration doesn’t let up here, as we see the way in which Abby’s drug addiction (which the novel treats correctly as a type of illness) affects the family in general, and Charlie in particular. Some of Abby’s personality has undergone a shift. But underneath, she’s not the stereotypical disgusting and immoral drug user typically portrayed in fiction for children – instead, she is a regular person, a good student, and a loving sister who has made a terrible mistake.

Charlie is at once deeply concerned and anxious about Abby’s wellbeing, and at the same time Charlie is honest about how angry she feels at the ways in which she is now even more overlooked and ignored by her family. By focusing on herself, Charlie doesn’t always listen to the explanations the adults in her life give her about what is going on. But at the same time, these adults often talk around the truth, which Charlie gets to the heart of by asking direct questions.

Abby ends up going to a rehab facility, where Charlie and her parents visit her every Sunday instead of being able to do Irish dance or anything else. The rehab seems to be working, and Abby seems to be on the mend for a short time after getting out. But soon, Abby’s addiction gets the better of her and she overdoses once again during a relapse. There is no cure for this from a magical wishing fish – when Charlie goes back to try to find the fish in the lake, she realizes that it must have been caught and killed.



The novel ends on a hopeful but realistic note. Abby will always struggle to stay clean and sober, but thankfully she has the love of her family to support her. Charlie realizes the true meaning of the serenity prayer.