✨The Wishkeeper's Apprentice (2025)

By Rachel Chivers Khoo

Illustrated by Rachel Sanson

4Rbooks                                           5+/6                grades          4-7

Amazon                                             4.6/5              grade level   2-5

Goodreads                                      4.07/5          

Common Sense Media               Not Yet Reviewed

227 pages

Synopsis

            Felix, 10, wishes that his relationship with his sister, 17, would be the way it used to be. Lately she has had little to do with him and seems annoyed with him about everything. When she forgets to pick him up after school one day, he walks home. On the way he stops at the local penny fountain and throws in a coin, wishing that she would like him again.

            Felix suddenly notices a strange looking and small man fishing out coins from the fountain.  The man is surprised Felix can see him and explains that he is the Wishkeeper for the town.  He is taking out the wishing coins so he can grant wishes. Rupus, his name, realizes there is something unique about Felix and offers him a job to be his apprentice.

            Felix agrees and soon learns that the wishkeeping business is more complicated than imagined, especially when he learns there is a wishsnatcher in town who is trying to undo all of the wishes Rupus has made come true. This wishsnatcher has been haunting Felix’s dreams for awhile and Felix realizes he will have to face him and help Rupus if the town’s wishes are to be saved, including a wish directly related to him and his sister that he never knew.  

Parental Guidelines:    low

Felix discovers he is the manifestation of a wish and begins to disappear when the wishsnatcher attacks Rupus, the wishkeeper. His sister and parents don’t remember him.

The wishsnatcher invades Felix’s dreams and injures Felix and Rupus with his claws.

Rupus almost becomes a wishsnatcher.

Recommendation

            This was a fun and easy read, very fanciful and enjoyable. The illustrations were excellent and enhanced the story telling. I can easily imagine this book on any elementary library or classroom library shelf, and it would be an excellent read-aloud or group read for a medium to struggling reader group. This is a debut novel from an Irish writer now living in London. There are some distinctly UK phrases and terms, but not enough to slog down the reading. There is a recipe in the back for a warm drink, similar to hot chocolate, that Rupus makes for Felix.