When keenly observant eleven-year-old Van, who is hearing impaired, follows a strange girl and a talking squirrel into an odd building, he discovers an underground society where wishes are held to protect the outside world. The battle that ensues--in which West thoughtfully blurs the line between good intentions and bad--is compelling and should entice readers to devour this vivid, whimsical fantasy, first in a planned duology.

Van, who is hard of hearing and uses hearing aids, discovers the true mission of the City Collection Agency: to collect wayward wishes. One summer in an unnamed North American city, Van spots a girl and a squirrel fishing for a coin that has just been tossed into a fountain by wisher. He soon learns that both girl and squirrel belong to a secret society of people and talking animals who collect and store wishes made as folks toss coins in fountains, extinguish birthday candles, break wishbones, and so forth. Turns out, when uncontained, wishes can come true, and their magic is often chaotic, unpredictable, and dangerous. Van is soon pulled into a power struggle when Mr. Falborg, a fan of Van's opera-singer mother who is also aware of wishing magic, asks Van to find out just what the City Collection Agency has stored away. West states in her acknowledgements that she consulted with several deaf and hard-of-hearing students, and the descriptions of Van's use of hearing aids, his struggles with background noise, and his ability to quickly rethink misheard speech based on context clues ring true. Although the plot gets a little bogged down in comings and goings and a few characters seem extraneous, West has constructed a fast-paced and engrossing tale of a boy wrestling with the consequences of power and responsibility. The book assumes a white default.Readers may not wish to leave this magical world.(Fantasy. 8-12)

With an opera singer mother who performs around the world, 11-year-old Van Markson is used to being a new kid, and his taste in books and movies, along with -a tiny blue hearing aid behind each ear,- sometimes set him apart at school. Van is also good at noticing things that other people overlook, and when he spots a girl, accompanied by an -almost silver, very bushy-tailed- squirrel, plunging face-first into a fountain, a series of events draw Van into a magical underground world where he is caught in the middle of a secret war. West (the Books of Elsewhere series) has created a captivating mythology around wishes, including cuddly-turned-dangerous Wish Eaters (not unlike gremlins) as well as thoughtful explorations of power and the unexpected, sometimes negative, consequences of good intentions. Van-s realization that his skill of noticing is a valuable strength, especially when hearing challenges feel to him like a shortcoming, is a gentle, triumphant reminder that being different doesn-t correspond to weakness. First in a planned duology, West-s magical adventure offers humor and warmhearted adventure. Ages 8-12. Agent: Danielle Chiotti, Upstart Crow Literary. (Oct.)