Book Review: A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott

By Courtney Elizabeth Mauk

Zetta Elliott’s young adult novel A Wish After Midnight is a coming of age story with an historical twist.  In present day Crown Heights, fifteen year old Genna feels as if she does not belong at home, at school, or in her neighborhood.  Quiet and studious, she finds solace at the public library, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and with Judah, a classmate and recent Jamaican immigrant who shares Genna’s love for words and teaches her to embrace her uniqueness.  But these escapes are not enough, and after Genna’s brother is arrested and tensions boil over at home, she runs away late one night.  She seeks refuge in the botanic garden, where she tosses a coin into the fountain and makes a desperate wish for a different life.  At once her wish is granted, but not in the way she intended.  She is transported back in time to 1863, in the months preceding the New York draft riots, where she wakes in the body of a runaway slave.

A Wish After Midnight is a thought-provoking book that prompts the reader to reexamine his or her experience and worldviews.  Genna is a strong, spirited narrator whose struggles for love, acceptance, and self-awareness are relatable and would have special appeal to teenagers.  As she confronts the race and class conflicts of Brooklyn during the Civil War, she comes to realizations about race and class in America today and makes difficult decisions that redefine who she is.  Elliott shows us that no clear-cut answers exist, especially when dealing with questions of human nature.  A study guide is given at the end of the book, with discussion questions that could be used in a classroom or book club or by the reader on his or her own.

Zetta Elliot has a PhD in American Studies from New York University and has lived in Brooklyn for fifteen years.  She is an accomplished playwright and poet, and her picture book, Bird, won a 2009 ALA Notable Children’s Book award.  More information can be found on her website, http://www.zettaelliott.com.

Courtney Elizabeth Mauk’s work has appeared in The Literary Review, Forge Journal, PANK,Word Riot, Joyland, BrooklynTheBorough, and the anthology Gravity Fiction, which was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for independently published books.

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