Mr Wumble and the Dragon and other stories by Enid Blyton is a collection of fifteen short stories titled Mr Wumble and the Dragon, When Mother Lost Her Purse, Tit for Tat, Binkle's Tail, The Bright Little Pound, All the Way to Santa Claus, The Lost Beads, The Little Bear's Adventure, Hurrah for the Pepper-Pot!, The China Rabbit, The Silver Merman, Mr. Quink's Garden, Jumbo Saves the Day, The Wishing Hat and Twinkle's Fur Coat.
The Wishing Hat is about Spillikins the pixie who goes to Dame Twinkle’s teashop for tea where he takes his pointed hat off and hangs it up on a hook behind his chair before he orders his tea. Spillikins is in a hurry and so he has a bun and a glass of milk, then pays his bill and takes his cap off the hook, wears it and rushes out.
It was a beautiful day and Spillikins was going to visit his friend Tippy who lives in a beautiful little cottage. The sun was very hot that day and Spillikins feels very tired by walking a long way and wishes that somebody would come to wheel him in a barrow to Tippy’s cottage. Suddenly Spillikins sees a big wheelbarrow being pushed by an imp who knocks him into it and takes him along.
Spillikins finds the wheelbarrow very hard to sit in, wishes that there were cushions and to his surprise finds a comfortable cushion under him. The Spillikins who feels very thirsty because of the heat wishes that it would rain lemonade and to his astonishment finds large, yellow drops of delicious lemonade falling from the sky. Spillikins gets drenched by the heavy lemonade shower and wishes that it would stop and it does. Spillikins realises that something very strange is happening because everything he wishes for comes true and he decides to wish for a few more things to see if it also comes true.
Reviewed by Hannah William