THE TINY WISH

A little girl named Anja has another Scandinavian-themed adventure in this story illustrated with supersized photographs, a companion to The Christmas Wish (2013).

This time the story has a summertime setting, with Anja visiting her cousins at their remote mountain farm. The three children explore the countryside, playing with goats and riding together on the family’s huge horse. During a game of hide-and-seek, Anja wishes she were small enough to hide even more successfully from everyone, and her wish is mysteriously granted. She shrinks down to just a few inches, flying off on the back of a friendly finch to experience her new size in relation to other settings and animals. She uses a pine cone as a sled, makes a birch-bark boat with a squirrel and rides home astride a helpful rabbit. The high-quality digitally composed photographs draw readers in with sweeping mountain vistas and charmingly posed interactions between Anja and her talking animal friends. The text, however, is a little too wordy and enthusiastic, with a too-jolly tone and a surfeit of exclamation points: “Anja! You’re so tiny!” The ending falls back on the tired was-it-a-dream-or-not conclusion. “Maybe it wasn’t a dream!” marvels Anja as she notices bits of vegetation on her sheets.

With its intriguing photographs but less-than-compelling story, this will appeal mainly to fans of her first outing.