Peter Stone, of Nikki Loftin’s Wish Girl, wants nothing more than calmness, but his home is filled with noise. His parents shouting and his baby sister crying drive him to search for solace, and that is exactly what he finds in the valley near his new home. His solitude, however, is short-lived, for someone else has happened upon this magical valley as well. Annie, self-named "wish girl," searching for a similar peace, finds more than that. She finds Peter. And in each other they find a listening ear, a life-changing friend, and a glimmer of hope in their seemingly hopeless lives.

Loftin's story of magical realism was hard for me to get into, but something kept drawing me back. Maybe it was the beautiful prose, or maybe it was the sadness of Peter. Whatever it was, I am glad I stuck it out. Wish Girl is a beautiful story, one that needs to be told in a world where we are so quick to judge each other and even quicker to try to fix people to be more like ourselves. Although Loftin's story reminds me to accept people for who they are, more importantly, it reminds me of the power listening, actually listening, has.