The thing that DID bug me at the end was the heavy-handedness and sappiness with all the dead-trains stuff. It had been delightfully grounded up till then, and suddenly–for me–kind of jumped the shark into religious, almost judgmental territory. Did this bug anyone else?

I wish I still had a copy of the book, but I remember that there was a scene near the very end where (to me at least) Callie seemed to be able to do a completely different kind of magic from anything that we had been prepared for. Am I making this up? Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Or should I track down another copy?

Mark, I’ve been thinking about how I feel about the wish magic, but I think after reflecting that it does work for me. I might be bringing too much to it– I’ve read a lot about fairies and glamor and such, in fiction and in collections of and about folklore, and so the idea that the fairies can feel off and use the wishing energy, the pure, human energy, around them makes sense to me. But I see how some of that is how I am interpreting, and not entirely made clear in the context of the book itself.

I did think the writing was good and the story solid, but I actually noticed a couple of (very very) minor historical mistakes. The only one I can think of right now was so silly it’s barely worth mentioning – the Betty Boop cartoon that Callie watches came out a couple months after the date of the story. Silly, but it surprised me when you mentioned that good historical research.