Samira's Wish

Samira lives with her parents and brother, and is very good at a lot of things, especially helping people. When Grandma and Grandpa are due to arrive very early one Saturday, Samira plans to make them Grandpa’s favourite breakfast of beans on toast, and gets everything ready. However, in the morning she finds that Dad has eaten the beans, so Samira and Grandpa go to the local shop to get some more. These turn out to be magic beans, granting a wish with every mouthful, and Grandpa tries it out. A book thumps onto the table, and Grandma is scornful about a wish wasted, because ‘you can get a book free at the library’ (Hooray!), but then her brother Anish gets a bike. Grandma gets a horse, and she passes the tin to Mum with the encouragement to ‘do something right’. Mum therefore wishes for a bigger house, but this means that the neighbouring houses all get squashed. Angry neighbours are given their turns, and the results get more and more ridiculous as someone even wishes for a jumbo jet, then the empty tin is thrown out of the window, and still Samira hasn’t had a wish of her own. There is, fortunately, one bean stuck under the lid, and Samira makes a careful wish: everything goes back to normal, and the full tin is back on the shelf of the shop. They buy something else for breakfast, and the special tin will wait for another time.

The Notes at the end explain how baked beans are made and give some fascinating facts, then a delicious recipe for beans on toast. The illustrations are fun, and this entertaining story by the experienced storyteller Saviour Pirotta involving an Indian family will resonate with many children. The pictures help with deciphering the words, and the letters are formed without any ornamentation, in a font which might be Century Gothic.