Ever since twelve year old Charlie Price’s mom died of cancer, his dad has been gone, too—absentminded, working late, not really there when he is home. Charlie misses his mom. Charlie’s little sister Imogen misses mom, too. Charlie also misses his best friend, Frank, who just disappeared (kidnapped? runaway?) several months ago.

Everything goes from bad to worse when Charlie tries to make Mom’s special spaghetti sauce and fails spectacularly, and then Imogen wishes for the impossible: she wants to live with Mom again and forget about Charlie and their dad.

“Sometimes you can make the impossible happen.” That’s the tagline on the cover of The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price, and Imogen’s wish does come true. Unfortunately, to paraphrase The Rolling Stones, when you get what you think you want, you don’t always get what you need. Charlie, Imogen, Frank, and another friend, Elliott, are all in for a big surprise when they try to reclaim their deceased loved ones.

Bibliotherapy disguised as fantasy. It’s disguised pretty well, but just as Charlie Price didn’t get much from the school psychologist and her “grief group”, I’m not sure how effective this book is going to be in healing or alleviating the grief of children who have lost a loved one or family member. Maybe it would be helpful for some. Different strokes.

Remarkable Journey is a debut novel for Ms. Maschari. The writing is good, characters are okay, plotting works. A little less death and angst (three deaths of intimate family members and one disappearance?) might have been adequate.