A review by bubbleybrain
Wish Upon A Leaf by Teresa Grabs

5.0

A cutesy Hallmark children's tale about found families and questioning inherent biases.

However, it was disconnected from reality and time. The villain of the novel, Ms. Williams, drives around in a 1934 motorcar, the mentor, Ms. Lizzie, in a hippie VW bus, but later on during the Halloween event one of the orphan girls dresses up as a Vocaloid. Very jarring, especially given the hyper-sensitive nature of child protection in modern society and that the group of kids is left to their own devises and that orphanages are near gone in USA and replaced by foster care.

Minus those moments, the kids are petty and independent in the way children are. Their goals are not their needs (they need to bathe, and sleep in a bed. Do they want to? Of course not!), and what they obsess over is from the lens of childhood.