Book review: 'Wish Upon a Star' teaches a good lesson about sibling rivalry but lacks proper parental supervision

14-year-old Hayley Wheaton is super smart. A straight-A student, she's every teacher's dream in Wish Upon a Star, a middle grade novel by the author who wrote the screenplay of the popular 90's movie.

But Hayley doesn't see herself as talented. Instead, she's forever wondering what it would be like to be her older sister, the popular Alexia. Alex's room is pristine, she hangs with the in-crowd, and her boyfriend is the stuff dreams are made of.

At least, that's how life appears to Hayley.

So one night, as she sees a meteor race across the sky, she makes a wish. She wishes she could be Alex.

Then she wakes up the next morning and, gasp, her wish has come true! Alex doesn't seem as phased at the strange turn of events and, instead, seems in surprisingly good humor as she helps Hayley get dressed in appropriate Alex attire.

As the girls live through several days in each other's bodies, they realize how much they need to depend on each other and, actually, how great their own lives are. This is a great book that delves into sibling dynamics, the power of being yourself, and is just a fun read.

There is one thing that really bugged me about Wish Upon a Star, however. It's the interesting relationship between the girls and their psychologist parents. Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton, or Ben and Nan, as Alex refers to them, are against any form of parental discipline. That's right, all you parents, these fictional ones never say "no" to their daughters and never dole out any kind of punishment. Every once in a while they may make a suggestion, but they never push, or teach for that matter, their kids anything. And, while it makes a great premise for a book, because then the girls can do just about anything they want and the lack of parental discipline makes sense to the reader, I wasn't impressed by it.

Why is it that sooooo many YA and middle grade books are full of lazy, no-good, or stupid parents? It's irksome to me that there's such a huge glob of authors who are perpetrating the idea of kids being smarter than the people who are raising them.

Rant over.

Wish Upon a Star talks about breasts, has a few kissing scenes (one of the characters gets a hickey), and takes the Lord's name in vain a handful of times. There isn't any violence and the main characters end up learning a lot about themselves.

Author Jessica Barondes lives in California with her husband. The author of two grown kids, she reworked her original manuscript, that would go on to become the move by the same name, during 2020, when life had slowed due to the pandemic.

123 pages
Best for ages: 11 through 14
Educational factor: none
Christian content: The Lord's name is taken in vain several times.