MOLLY AND THE MAGIC WISHBONE

McClintock (The Tale of Tricky Fox, 2000, etc.) takes as inspiration Dickens’s story of the magic fishbone, filling it out with a wonderful cast of animals and fine, handsome drawings with a decidedly Victorian flavor. Molly encounters her fairy godmother at the market and is alerted to a magic fishbone, which she will find at dinner that night and learns it will grant her one wish. When the bone is found, the other kittens—dedicated materialists all—give her a few suggestions: toys, cakes, and pretty dresses. But Molly, wise puss, decides to sleep on the wish. The kittens beseech her to use it to cure their ailing rabbit, but Molly sees that she is only about to give birth; they want her to use it to mend a broken bowl, their mother’s favorite, but Molly deploys the glue pot. Wish that ghost out of our room, they beg, until Molly shows them it is only a shadow. The next day the littlest kitten goes to market to get a magic bone of her own. All she gets is lost, and Molly’s wish is a foregone conclusion. McClintock gets the pacing just right, both in word and illustration, and, for a story that is tailor made to be preachy, the twin lessons of patience and levelheadedness feel like they were used for good rather than to browbeat. Magic, indeed. (Picture book. 3-6)