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The Wish List by Eoin Colfer
Published by O’Brien Press Ltd., 2000
ISBN 0862786584

First Review: by Kilkee Library Children’s Book Club

This ‘unputdownable’ book was enjoyed by everyone in the club.
Fourteen year old Meg Finn is in serious trouble – she and her ‘partner in crime’, Belch are dead!

Belch is evil and goes to hell, where all the bad guys go but Meg on the other hand has an equal amount of good and evil in her. She has to redeem herself to get into heaven. To do this she must return to the world of Lowrie McCall, the man she and Belch tried to rob and help him do/undo his deepest regrets or his wish list. The story doesn’t end there however as the devil wants Meg in hell and sends back Belch as a Soul man to make Meg fail and to get her soul.

This is a very humorous book but it also has its sad moments. We gave it ten out of ten and the book club will definitely read more books by this author. Some of the children said they would enjoy reading this book again!

There is lots of detail in it and it may be more suitable for older readers aged ten and up.

Favourite funny scenes:

- The way Lowrie and Meg get into R.T.E. and the scene where he kisses Sissy.
- Beezlebub has to release Belch and Elph from the holding cell, when they have both shorted out.
- When they break into Croke Park and realise they don’t have a football to kick.


Second Review:
by Kilmihil Children’s Book Club

This is the story of 14 year old Meg Finn. The book begins with her and her accomplice, a bully named Belch breaking into a pensioner’s house. Things go wrong when Lowrie, the pensioner is awakened and they go from bad to worse when Belch blows both Meg and himself to kingdom come.

Both of them die and Belch is sent straight to hell. Meg however, having done her best to save Lowrie’s life is half and half good and bad and so she is between Heaven and Hell. She has to return to Earth and try to help Lowrie – the man she wronged, to complete his wish list, so that her aura can turn blue and she can go to Heaven.

The devil however has plans for Meg and wants her to fail so he sends Belch back to Earth to get her.

The book was not enjoyed by the majority of children in the group. They found the subject of death and hell quite disturbing and the violence toward Lowrie at the beginning of the story was gory, though some did find some parts of the book quite funny.

Kilmihil Book Club members had read Eoin Colfer’s Benny and Babe previously and had expected The Wish List to be a similar read. They found it to be a totally different type of story.