Tuesday Reviews: Wenny Has Wings by Janet Lee Carey

Title: Wenny Has Wings

Author: Janet Lee Carey

Publisher: Anthenum Books for Young Readers

Release Date: June 1, 2004

Format Read: Paperback

Rating: Five stars

Description from Goodreads: In the fight with the truck barreling toward them, Weeny and Will lost big. Wenny lost her life. Will lost a sister-- and lost faith in himself.

But then Will starts writing letters to Wenny. he tells her all about the secret of his near-death experience, and the troubles he's having at home. Some letters are funny. Some letters are harsh. And when read together, they tell the story of a boy who finds a way to move past death and learns how to live again...

The first time I read WENNY HAS WINGS, I was eight years old. I remember checking it out from the library, and I remember it being a deep read for me at my age. Years passed, and I had flashbacks of a book about a little boy whose sister died, and an adventure in a tunnel, and I absolutely could not figure out what book it was from. Last year, I did some research and ultra-mega-googling, and found WENNY. As soon as I saw the cover, I recognized the book, and since then, I have wanted to get my hands on a copy and reread it. 

The issue with that is that this is a crazy hard novel to find in stores, due to it being twelve years old. I mentioned my struggles to a good friend, and guess what I found in my Christmas present from him? Yep. WENNY HAS WINGS.

Rereading this book was like a blast from the past. It was so familiar, yet it was as if I were reading it for the first time, since it had been ten years. I loved being thrown back into this story, following Will as he struggled with the loss of his sister and the new family dynamic that evolved after her death. Told from an eleven-year-old's point of view, the story is simple and sweet, brutally honest as only children can be, and absolutely worth reading for a second time.

A quick and easy read, I give WENNY HAS WINGS a five star review, for not only being such a moving and emotional read, but for being one of those books that sticks with you as you go through life, and makes you try to find it ten years later. I recommend it to anyone who likes deep reads that revolve around familial deaths, and grief handling. It's an extremely beautiful book in all of its innocence, and it deserves to be well-loved.