Goosebumps 12 – Be Careful What You Wish For

R. L. Stine's Be Careful What You Wish For is a Goosebumps story for 8 year olds about a girl who's given three wishes and finds out the hard way what that means.

What happens

Samantha Byrd (Sam to everyone) is twelve and the tallest kid in her class. She's also, in her own words, the biggest klutz on earth. And she's on the basketball team, which really doesn't help.

Judith is the star player. She trips Sam up in maths, tips tapioca pudding over her brand-new Doc Martens and calls her Stork. Her favourite line is "fly away, Byrd". Sam has had about enough.

After a horrible practice, Sam cycles off in the rain and meets a pale woman in a red shawl who's lost her way. Sam kindly walks her all the way to Madison Street. To say thank you, the woman holds up a glowing red glass ball and offers her three wishes.

Sam doesn't believe a word of it, so she blurts out the first thing in her head. She wishes to be the strongest player on her team. And it comes true! Just not quite the way she meant.

Sam is very easy to like. She's honest about how clumsy she is, she's funny about it, and she's furious with Judith in a way most kids will understand. Her friend Cory, who eats the same cold cheese toastie every day, is a lovely bit of comic relief.

It's a story about being careful with your words. It's also about how good revenge feels for about five minutes. Sam enjoys it at first (she's cheering from the court like her own one-girl crowd). Then the guilt kicks in, and it's very real.

It's worth knowing the bullying is constant, and Sam does lose her temper badly. In Home Ec. she grabs Judith by the throat until the teacher pulls them apart. Later she worries her wish could make the other girls seriously ill, which a sensitive reader might find upsetting.

If you've got a reader who's ever had a Judith in their class, though, they'll find plenty here to cheer about.

What to read next

If they enjoyed a grown-up who isn't quite what she seems, try Piano Lessons Can Be Murder next. Jerry moves into an old house, finds a piano hidden in the attic and hears it playing on its own in the night.