Make-A-Wish

And we hear from Dr. Warner again!

Baby-Sitters Club #48: Jessi’s Wish is “the volunteer book,” straight from AMM’s handwriting in her first notes about the book:

The plot ends up being different from this first set of notes; you can actually read her chapter-by-chapter notes in the digital archive. I didn’t find the progression from the one page notes to two page outline to 124 page draft too interesting. Instead, I took several pictures from the “Research Materials” which are briefly described in the AMM Archives finding aid:

“Research Materials: 10 items

~American Cancer Society Candlelighters newsletters: Youth, Spring 1989,

Winter 1990; Quarterly, Spring 1989, Summer 1989, and Summer 1990 (5 items)

~Article (photocopy) about Muscular Dystrophy from Harrison’s Principles of

Internal Medicine (8th ed. 1977)

~Make-A-Wish Foundation Newsletters, Spring 1990, Summer 1990; with

newspaper article about a Make-A-Wish Foundation recipient (3 items)

~Page from Memorial Sloane-Kettering newsletter”

First, thanks again to the fabulously interesting in her own right Su Meck for putting together everything so clearly and delineating what everything was. It was cool to see that AMM researched things so meticulously and kept it all together to be put in the archive almost three decades later. That doesn’t surprise me. What is even more fascinating is the handwritten notations on some of the materials.

First, whose idea was it to give Make-A-Wish “some good publicity”?! It doesn’t look familiar to anyone else’s handwriting that we’ve seen in the Archive so far.

Whoever it was (an editor? friend? someone at Scholastic? someone at Make-A-Wish?), Ann listened! There was only one more handwritten note, on the photocopied article about muscular dystrophy. In this one, those of us paying attention recognize some names and handwriting:

We learned previously that “Fern” was some kind of nickname for Ann. Was it just from Dr. Werner? Did others call her Fern or Ferness? What kind of illness had Ann been suffering from?

Also, we know that in the book, they changed Make-A-Wish to Your Wish is My Command. If they were trying to generate publicity (and money) for Make-A-Wish, why the change? They were obviously working closely with them and nothing from the correspondence in the last folder of materials about this book even hint at any kind of disagreement or animosity. Typed letters concerning an agreement between Scholastic Books (Linda Lannon), Ann Martin and the Make-a-Wish Foundation (Patricia Clemency, Executive Director) state that a portion of each sale of Jessi’s Wish to be donated of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

More mysteries! If only we had a dedicated group of teen girls with free time and access to microfiche machines on the case…