The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: O'Connor, Barbara. Wish. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2016. Kindle Edition.

Ten-year old Charlemagne (Charlie) Reese must leave her home in Raleigh and move to the rural town of Colby to live with her Aunt Bertha and Uncle Gus when her father goes to prison and her mother neglects Charlie and her sister, Jackie. Jackie stays with her best friend and her best friend’s parents because she is almost eighteen. The separation angers Charlie. While she understands how her father’s fighting sent him to prison, she does not understand why her mother cannot get on her feet and take care of them. She also does not understand why Jackie gets to live the good life in Raleigh with people she knows while she has to live with strangers in a hillbilly mountain town. She has been told that people eat squirrel sandwiches in that town. However, there is one thing that Charlie manages to keep constant in her life. She continues to make her daily wish.

On the first day of school, when Charlie fills out the sheet her teacher gives her to get to know Charlie better, Charlie makes it clear that attending school with hillbilly classmates does not make her happy. She is also not happy when her teacher assigns a boy with a limp named Howard to be the person who helps her get used to her new school. To her dismay, Howard even sits next to her on the school bus. Howard has his own issues. Children make fun of him, and he does not have many friends. However, he seems to not let these things bother him. Charlie thinks his house looks sad when she first sees it. She notices how the house that she lives in with Bertha and Gus seems to hang off the side of the mountain. However, even though Charlie wants to reject her life in Colby, both Bertha and Gus embrace her. When she meets Howard's family, they embrace Charlie, too. Still Charlie is sad and mad because she thinks Jackie has a better life than she does in Raleigh and that the members of her nuclear family have forgotten her.

Finally, Jackie comes to visit when she realizes that Charlie is unhappy and has not understood that she is not living the life of a princess in Raleigh. To Charlie’s surprise, Jackie fits in with the members of the community and tells Charlie how lucky she is to live in Colby. Their father writes Charlie on several occasions, and Jackie has visited him. His letters indicate that he is getting accustomed to life in prison. Jackie tells Charlie that he has a tattoo on his hand of a blackbird in a cage.

Charlie slowly starts to make friends with Howard and enjoy being with his family. She realizes that his house is not sad after all.

In the midst of all of this, Charlie sees a stray dog that she is determined to catch and make hers. She relates to the dog because it is a stray and does not belong anywhere. She feels that it is like her. She finally catches it with the help of Howard, Bertha, and Howard’s father. She names is Wishbone. However, at one point, it runs away. Howard tells her that Wishbone made a mistake and will come back. Everyone tells her that it would be stupid for Wishbone not to realize the good life he has with Charlie. Wishbone finds his way back to Charlie’s home.

As the summer continues, Charlie begins to do more things with Howard‘s family and admits that she is Howard’s friend. Additionally, she comes to terms with her own identity. Then, the social worker lady appears. She says that Carla, Charlie’s mother, is better and Charlie should go back to Raleigh. The news scares Charlie. She admits that she does not want to return to Raleigh. Jackie was right. She has everything that she has always wished for in Colby. Even though everyone is worried for a while, Carla’s subsequent behavior proves that she is not capable of taking care of Charlie. To everyone’s relief Charlie gets to stay with Bertha and Gus in Colby. Charlie no longer needs to make her wish because her wish has come true.