A Wish with Wings

A 12-year-old rails against others’ expectations and revels in her budding autonomy in this evocative novel from Guillory (Gus and Glory). Evan Calais would happily spend her days outside, fishing, staging mud fights, and roaming the swamps of Little John Island, La., but her fastidious mother and forbidding aunt expect her to stay both clean and indoors. During one of her nature wanderings, though, Evan discovers an unattended egg that she believes belongs to a whooping crane, which she sneaks home; she also notices unsettling bubbles rising from the swampland owned by the mining company that employs her father. When her dad is trapped by a cave-in, Evan is wracked with guilt over what she saw and failed to report, and begins withdrawing emotionally from her best friend, whose father supervises the mine. As Evan wrestles with questions of responsibility, loyalty, and courage, she pins her hopes for the future on the fragile egg in her care. Lush prose and emotionally grounded storytelling render Evan’s moral awakening both convincing and affecting, immersing readers in a vividly realized setting that celebrates the natural world and one’s place in it. Main characters read as white. Ages 8–12. Agent: Alice Sutherland-Hawes, ASH Literary. (May)