Lethcoe, Jason. 2007. The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff. New York: Penguin Group.
Recently orphaned Benjamin Bartholomew Piff has spent the last miserable year as an inmate of Pinch’s Home for Wayward Boys. Cold, hungry, and tormented by Miss Pinch and the cook Mr. Roach; it is Ben’s 9th birthday and Ben is planning to escape. Captured on his way out the door, Ben is sentenced to kitchen duty and, after scrubbing out the huge, filthy pots used to cook what Roach laughingly calls stew, he discovers his birthday cake, brought by his caseworker and confiscated by Miss Pinch, cuts himself a large slice, places a single lighted candle atop the slice, makes a wish, and blows out the candle. That’s when, amazingly, his wish for unlimited wishes comes. Delighted, Ben begins wishing for everything he has been missing in the year since his parent’s death. Everything seems perfect until Thomas Candlewick, newly promoted president of Wishworks, the magical corporation in charge of granting birthday wishes, shows up at the door to Benjamin’s new, wish-filled house and informs him his wish globe, with the powerful unlimited wishes wish inside, has been stolen by Adolfus Thornblood, CEO of Curseworks and arch nemesis of Wishworks and all it stands for. Ben learns the theft of his powerful wish has also undone Wishworks ability to grant wishes and until he can retrieve his wish globe and unwish his wish for unlimited wishes no one’s wishes will come true. It is up to Ben to break through Curseworks' defenses, liberate his wish globe from the evil Thornblood, and un-wish his wish for unlimited wishes. In his first book of the Benjamin Bartholomew Piff series author Jason Lethcoe takes readers on a fantastic and imaginative journey filled with leprechauns, jinn, evil spider lords, flying chairs, and inventive, magic-folk sports. Along the way he uses birthday wishes as a way to address both the power of empathy and the destructivness of greed.
Recently orphaned Benjamin Bartholomew Piff has spent the last miserable year as an inmate of Pinch’s Home for Wayward Boys. Cold, hungry, and tormented by Miss Pinch and the cook Mr. Roach; it is Ben’s 9th birthday and Ben is planning to escape. Captured on his way out the door, Ben is sentenced to kitchen duty and, after scrubbing out the huge, filthy pots used to cook what Roach laughingly calls stew, he discovers his birthday cake, brought by his caseworker and confiscated by Miss Pinch, cuts himself a large slice, places a single lighted candle atop the slice, makes a wish, and blows out the candle. That’s when, amazingly, his wish for unlimited wishes comes. Delighted, Ben begins wishing for everything he has been missing in the year since his parent’s death. Everything seems perfect until Thomas Candlewick, newly promoted president of Wishworks, the magical corporation in charge of granting birthday wishes, shows up at the door to Benjamin’s new, wish-filled house and informs him his wish globe, with the powerful unlimited wishes wish inside, has been stolen by Adolfus Thornblood, CEO of Curseworks and arch nemesis of Wishworks and all it stands for. Ben learns the theft of his powerful wish has also undone Wishworks ability to grant wishes and until he can retrieve his wish globe and unwish his wish for unlimited wishes no one’s wishes will come true. It is up to Ben to break through Curseworks' defenses, liberate his wish globe from the evil Thornblood, and un-wish his wish for unlimited wishes. In his first book of the Benjamin Bartholomew Piff series author Jason Lethcoe takes readers on a fantastic and imaginative journey filled with leprechauns, jinn, evil spider lords, flying chairs, and inventive, magic-folk sports. Along the way he uses birthday wishes as a way to address both the power of empathy and the destructivness of greed.
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