Billy Miller Makes a Wish

Ages 8 to 12, Grades 3 to 7

The stand-alone companion to two-time Newbery Honor author Kevin Henkes’s award-winning, acclaimed, and bestselling The Year of Billy Miller. In one of four starred reviews, Kirkus Reviews says that Billy Miller Makes a Wish is “full of heart and depth.”Billy Miller Makes a Wish is a laugh-out-loud funny and accessible story about summer, family, and wishes that (almost) come true. A memorable and relatable novel for young middle grade readers. Illustrated in black-and-white throughout by the author.

On his birthday, Billy Miller wishes for something exciting to happen. But he immediately regrets his wish when an ambulance rushes to his neighbor’s house. Is Billy responsible? Award-winning author Kevin Henkes delivers a short, funny, and emotionally complex novel complete with misplaced love letters, surprising critters, art projects, misguided tattoos—and another surprise for Billy and his family, maybe the best one yet!Illustrated throughout with black-and-white art by the author, this is a perfect novel for the early elementary grades and an essential choice for summer reading. A companion to The Year of Billy Miller, a Newbery Honor Book.

About the Author

Kevin Henkes is the author and illustrator of more than fifty critically acclaimed and award-winning picture books, beginning readers, and novels. He is the winner of the American Library Association’s 2020 Children’s Literature Legacy Award; he received the Caldecott Medal for Kitten’s First Full Moon in 2005; and Waiting won a Caldecott Honor and Geisel Honor in 2016. Kevin Henkes is also the creator of a number of picture books featuring his mouse characters, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Lilly’s Big Day and Wemberly Worried, the Caldecott Honor Book Owen, and the beloved Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. His most recent mouse character, Penny, was introduced in Penny and Her Song; her story continued in Penny and Her Doll, Penny and Her Marble (a Geisel Honor Book), and Penny and Her Sled. Bruce Handy, in a New York Times Book Review piece about A Good Day, wrote, “It should be said: Kevin Henkes is a genius.” Kevin Henkes received two Newbery Honors for novels—one for The Year of Billy Miller and the other for Olive’s Ocean. Also among his fiction for older readers are the novels Junonia, Bird Lake Moon, The Birthday Room, Sun & Spoon, and Sweeping Up the Heart. Kevin Henkes has been published by Greenwillow Books since the release of his first book, All Alone, in 1981. His fiftieth book, the picture book Egg, was published in January 2017. Most recently, he is the author of In the Middle of Fall, Winter Is Here, A Parade of Elephants, Penny and Her Sled, Sweeping Up the Heart, Summer Song, Sun Flower Lion, and A House.He lives with his family in Madison, Wisconsin. You can visit him online at www.kevinhenkes.com.