Careful What You Wish For is Melbourne author Maureen McCarthy’s latest novel and her first aimed at younger readers since Flash Jack. Ruth is a smart and sensitive 11-year-old girl who is having trouble with her school friends and her family. She feels ignored and out of place. Ruth got along really well with her well-travelled aunty Mary Ellen—who really understood Ruth—but Mary Ellen has recently passed away. Before she died she gave Ruth a mysterious rat—but is it a toy, or is it alive? There is a long set-up, over 100 pages, before the main portion of the story starts. After finding Rodney (the rat), who had been lost far from home, and thanks to some powerful rat magic, Ruth is able to try out a few scenarios—and perhaps change her life for the better. Would it help if her parents paid more attention to her? If she had no parents at all? If she were a somebody? McCarthy’s prose is solid, though the scenes that take place inside the 1950s Catholic boarding school are the most vivid and really leap from the page. Ruth has a clear and engaging voice and the thief Howard Pope is a fantastic character—I’d like to see more of him. This story is a sweet and funny tale about coming to appreciate your family and your life, and seeing your friends for who they really are.

Kate O’Donnell is a bookseller at the Younger Sun bookshop in Yarraville. This review first appeared in the November issue of Bookseller+Publisher magazine.