You and Me and the Wishing Tree

Tillman's mixed-media collages always have an air of surreal magic to them, a quality that especially befits this dreamy story of a mother's visit to a wish-granting tree with her child. Writing in the voice of the parent, Tillman (You're Here for a Reason) follows the twosome through a day filled with one miraculous wish after another. First, the child wishes to fly ("In just a whistle's worth of time/ and not a second more,/ our feet were not attached to ground/ the way they'd been before"), and subsequent wishes lead to a beachfront breakfast with bears, hopscotching with a penguin and dog, and a brief flirtation with invisibility: Tillman gives the child a ghost of an outline as he or she bicycles past a field of flowers, a red cape trailing behind and training wheels firmly affixed to the bike%E2%80%94safety first, even when invisible. The well-constructed verse tends toward the sugary as it emphasizes the child's appetite for adventure and the mother's quiet devotion, though it's unlikely to bother Tillman's many fans. Ages 4%E2%80%938. Agent: Cathy Hemming, Cathy D. Hemming Literary. (Sept.)