Amanda is worried that Thanksgiving won't be the same without her beloved grandmother Bubbe, but when she remembers Bubbe's favorite custom--making wishes on the wishbones she saved throughout the year--Amanda and her family find comfort and solace in tradition.

Every Thanksgiving, Amanda and her entire extended family descend on her Bubbe's house, where they enjoy a feast like no other, prepared over the course of an entire month. Bubbe also prepares a series of wishbones for each of her grandchildren, allowing them the opportunity to make a wish on each night they are visiting with her. This year however, Bubbe is gone, and Amanda and her family must carry on without the family matriarch. Hosting her cousins and aunts and uncles at their new house, Amanda's family attempts to recreate Bubbe's fabulous Thanksgiving dinner, only to find themselves in the dark when the power goes out. Then their new neighbor Mrs. Yee arrives, and with the help of some of the other neighbors, Amanda and her family manage to have Thanksgiving after all. Amanda even gets to make a Thanksgiving wish, discovering in the process what it was that Bubbe herself wished for, every time they snapped the wishbone...

The second holiday picture-book I have read from author Michael J. Rosen - the first being his lovely Hanukkah title, Our Eight Nights of Hanukkah - A Thanksgiving Wish offers a poignant, heartfelt examination of one Jewish American family's Thanksgiving traditions, and how that family copes, when the grandmother around whom the entire celebration revolves passes away. Amanda's sense of loss, her feeling of being lost without Bubbe, is captured in the text, as is the particular difficulties that holidays pose, to those facing the death of a loved one. I appreciated the father's words here: "You never stop missing someone, Mandi...You sort of forget how much you miss them until something - like Thanksgiving - reminds you again" - as they are so true! The accompanying artwork from illustrator John Thompson, which looks like it was done in oil paint, captures each scene beautifully, depicting a family at work together in the kitchen, or sitting around a table filled with candlelight. This one is very text heavy for a picture-book - it's almost more an illustrated short story - so I would recommend it to those on the older side of the picture-book audience (perhaps six and up?), and particularly, I would recommend it to anyone looking for children's Thanksgiving stories which address loss, and the first celebration without a grandparent or other loved one. ( )