The Wish List is the story of fourteen year old Meg. She�s been kicked out of her stepfather�s house and has turned to a life of petty crime. She is killed in a freak accident during a botched robbery attempt of an old man, Lowrie. Meg�s good deeds and her bad deeds are evenly matched, so she gets sent back to Earth as a ghost in order to help Lowrie and redeem herself so she may go to heaven. However, her partner in crime, Belch, who also died in the accident, has been sent back to earth as a demon to stop her from helping Lowrie, because Satan wants her soul.
In both of these stories, the main characters are complicated. Meg and Benny are both trouble makers on the surface and are extremely sarcastic, but deep down they aren�t all bad and they both want to do the right thing. Their disobedient characteristics were almost certainly due to the fact that Colfer was also like this as a child. He said in an interview �I was a mischevious boy. Always in trouble� (cite source). Colfer also notes that he�s �always been attracted to dark characters, from Moriarty in Arthur Conan Doyle�s Sherlock Holmes stories to Darth Vader� (Jubileebooks.co.uk 2001).
In both novels, characters are revealed mainly through their speech and actions. Meg doesn�t want to let Lowrie die. We see this by the way she screams at Belch to call an ambulance (The Wish List 7). Once she gets to know Lowrie, she cares about him and wants to help him fix the things in his life that he regrets. Benny is rude to the other kids at his school and disobeys his parents constantly. He isn�t doing it to purposely be bad though, he�s rude because that�s the only way he knows of to cope with his situation. He defies his parents orders to hang out with Omar because he knows about Omar�s desperate situation and knows that he needs Benny�s help. We see his true character when gives him his chance to be ungrounded and hops the fence in order to help Omar. �Colfer does such a masterful job� that youngers will like him in spite of themselves� (School Library Journal 2001). Both characters are strong willed and fiercely loyal to the ones that they love, despite their sarcasm. Colfer notes in an interview that the character of Artemis is extremely sarcastic and this sarcasm was loosely based on Colfer�s three younger brothers (BBC 2002).
Both plots are fast paced with a lot of action. In Benny and Omar, Benny is getting into trouble constantly. The conflict begins when Benny finds out that he has to move to Tunisia for a year. It continues to build as he begins sneaking over the fence to see Omar, then helps him steal cable, then eventually aids Omar in kidnapping his own sister from the hospital. The climax is extremely dramatic, with Benny, Omar and Omar�s sister, Kaheena, getting swept away in a flood, with Benny and Kaheena being saved at the very last moment. The resolution occurs when we find out that Kaheena has been adopted and Omar is alive, but in hiding. The Wish List is also action packed. Like, Benny and Omar, the conflict beings very early on and doesn�t let up throughout the story. It begins when Meg and Belch attempt to rob Lowrie and are then blown up in a gas explosion. It continues as we see Meg and Lowrie avoiding security guards to that Lowrie can kiss Sissy, and later battling with Belch. The climax occurs when Meg and Lowrie are on the cliff and Belch shows up. Meg is almost out of life energy, but then Flit appears and reminds her about the special blue stones in her pocket. The resolution occurs when Meg makes it to heaven.
Setting is extremely important in Benny and Omar, but not as important in The Wish List. Both begin in Ireland. While The Wish List is set entirely in Ireland, aside from a few seasons in heaven, hell and the tunnel, Benny and Omar�s setting moves to Tunisia. The Tunisian setting is critical in Benny and Omar. It creates a sense of isolation from the rest of the world for Benny because he�s essentially trapped in this compound with people he doesn�t care for. His escape is sneaking over the fence to hang out with Omar. This plot would not have worked nearly as well in any other setting. Colfer�s background is obvious from the settings in these two novels. He was born and raised in Ireland, but lived and worked in Tunisia for a year with his wife (Jubileebooks.co.uk 2001).
The theme of The Wish List is that it�s never too late to do the right thing. In Meg�s very last moments in life, she defends Lowrie, and this is the reason she has the chance to come back to Earth and redeem herself. Another theme is one of friendship. Her and Lowrie form an unlikely friendship that saves both of their souls in the end. In Benny and Omar, the theme is also this power of friendship. Benny risks first his parent�s trust and later his life in order to help Omar, someone he can barely even communicate with. But that doesn�t change the fact that Benny cares about him and wants to help him.
Both of the stories are told in third person point of view. The tone and mood change frequently in both stories. One minute, we will be laughing at something Omar has said in Benny and Omar. The next minute we will feel the overwhelming sadness he feels when we see the pain he is in on his sister�s birthday. The same is true in The Wish List. One minute we will be laughing at the banter between Lowrie and Meg. The next minute we will be feeling sorry for the way Meg�s stepfather beat her, or the way Lowrie was picked on as a boy. The Wish List is a �delightful novel that is written in a much lighter vein than his �Artemis Fowl� books� (School Library Journal 2003). While both stories have main characters who are Irish, this is much more important to the style in Benny and Omar, than it is in The Wish List. I sometimes had trouble understanding what Benny was saying in Benny and Omar. Colfer �studs the prose with Irish slang (�eejit,� �the dole,� �that yoke�)� (Publishers Weekly 2001). Also, he sometimes speaks a foreign language when he�s talking to Omar that creates an interesting style. Then of course, there�s Omar�s speech. He�s learned how to talk from watching TV so he only says things that he�s heard on TV. For instance, instead of using the words �mom� and �dad� he says �Marge� and �Homer� because those are the parents on the Simpsons. Omar refers to himself and Benny as the �Bee Gees� and he means �brothers� by this.
The use of dialect is not as important in The Wish List as it is in Benny and Omar. But the dialogue is extremely important, just as it is between Benny and Omar in Benny and Omar. Most of what we learn about Meg and about Lowrie is through their conversations with each other. We learn about how stubborn they both are and sarcastic through their back and forth banter. After Lowrie kisses Sissy, Meg says �It�s disgusting� Have you no dignity?� and Lowrie retorts with �You wouldn�t be jealous, by any chance?� and Meg says back �Jealous? Of what? Kissing a granny?� Not only do we learn about their personalities through this banter, but we also see their relationship develop as a deeper and deeper friendship through the conversations they have with one another.
Colfer uses humor in both of these novels. The Wish List �features Colfer�s trademark broad humor� (Voice of Youth Advocates). This is interesting because both of the novels have an underlying serious conflict going on. In Benny and Omar, �Colfer does� a masterful job of mixing humor and tragedy� (School Library Journal 2001).
Another main difference between these two books is simply the genre. Benny and Omar is obviously realistic fiction. There are no supernatural elements in this story, which differs from Colfer�s most well-known books, the Artemis Fowl series. The Wish List on the other hand, is an �odd mix of fantasy and science fiction� (Voice of Youth Advocates 2003). Colfer himself is superstitious and believes in fairies and other mythical creatures (Artemis Fowl Fun Site Author 2001). This most certainly had an affect on the The Wish List and some of his other books with fantastical elements such as The Supernaturalist and the Artemis Fowl books.