Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi - OPTIONAL

Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes (Pandava Novel, #3) by Roshani Chokshi, 386 pages.  Disney Hyperion, 2020.  $17.  

Content: Language: G: Mature Content: G; Violence: G.  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Fourteen-year old Aru and her Pandava friends are on a quest to find the tree of wishes. At first they need to locate a clairvoyant Pandava and her twin sister, in an attempt to prevent the Sleeper from hearing her prophesies. Aru is convinced that in order to keep the Sleeper from causing a war, she needs to get to the tree of wishes and ask for help from the wish-granting tree.  Of course the quest is long and crazy with lots of hiccups along the way, but Aru and her band of friends have each other’s backs.  

Aru is an great heroine and her sidekicks have their own stories that make them equally as interesting.  I enjoyed the Sleeper elements to this story, as the Sleeper is Aru’s father.  As with the Pandava novels, there are a lot of names and a lot of little side stops along the quest that can get overwhelming, but the banter between the characters makes them easy to read and the characters lovable.  There is an extensive character glossary at the back of the book to help keep track of all the characters and terms.  

Reviewer, C. Peterson