Terrierlanus

In the second semester of my graduate program I signed up for a course on Shakespeare’s Roman plays. It was a long semester: there were multiple Agrippas to keep track of. Volumnia, Virgillia, and the Volscians blurred together as the onstage bodies piled up. As the semester wore on, a running joke emerged: “Where’s the Wishbone version of this play?”

It’s a testament to the enduring charm of a doublet-dressed Jack Russell terrier that my classmates and I were making Wishbone jokes 15 years after the show went off the air. Wishbone, if you happened to miss it during its late 90s peak, was a children’s comedy fantasy show starring a winsome pup named…yeah, you’ve got it. Every week, Wishbone would observe the goings on of the humans around him and imagine the parallels between their lives and classic literature. It is, as I type it out, a bonkers premise for a television show, even accounting for the wild tastes of elementary school kids. Nevertheless, Wishbone aired 50 episodes from 1995-97. It’s a classic for a certain swath of bookish kids who could sense there was a whole new world of stories after The Babysitters Club and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.

Because this was the 90s, it would be impossible to have a children’s tv show without some sort of merchandise tie in. Wishbone spawned an entire series of middle grade book adaptations of the stories featured in the show. The appearance of the Wishbone Classics adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in my school library was a watershed moment. It was a book that crossed the library’s grade barrier, where certain bookshelves were off-limits to puny 5th graders like me. I knew little kids had to prove they were ready for the Big Kid Books and I, with my well-established nearsightedness and penchant for impromptu playground phonics lectures, had been preparing for years to read those books. Wishbone Classics were a shortcut to plots way above my grade level.

As soon as a new Wishbone book appeared, I was the first to check it out. I would crack each spine with the practiced flourish of an undefeated Summer Reading Challenge Champion. I read them all, taking comfort and joy in each glossy volume. No matter how many games of Red Rover I wasn’t picked for, I had the consolation of knowing that even Odysseus returned home and that Joan of Arc was eventually recognized as a saint.

After I demolished the entire Wishbone Classics list and The Adventures of Wishbone series up to Volume 10 (The Pawloined Paper), I presented myself to the school’s librarian, Mrs. Bevan, and made my case. Surely now I could access the Big Kid Books. Yes, I would need the three rung step-stool to reach the top shelf and yes, I understood the 5 book at a time check out limit was still in effect, but I was ready.

“Okay,” said Mrs. Bevan, “Would you like to start with this one?”

She handed me a brand new copy of Romeo and Juliet. It was a student study edition with facing-page contemporary English rendering of the original text. It also featured elaborate sidebars and footnotes commenting on the play. Wishbone books were famous for their marginalia, where Wishbone explained points of the language or plot that might confuse young readers in funny sidebars to the text. As a kid I was amazed that Mrs. Bevan had picked the perfect book. As an adult I realize that she had always been watching and knew exactly what I needed.

I think what makes Wishbone notable now is how generous they were to child readers, something I suspect is rarer today. Someone in the mid 90s thought kids might be interested in Don Quixote or Frankenstein and took the trouble to create a kid-friendly way to encounter those stories. What I remember about Wishbone books is that they never condescended to the reader. They were exciting and expansive, and they treated the reader with respect and patience. The creators of those books recognized the budding intelligence every kid posesses and found a way to meet those minds where they were.

Romeo and Juliet was the only Shakespearean adaptation in the Wishbone Classics series. I like to think Wishbone would have played a great Valentine in Two Gentlemen of Verona or a gleeful Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Maybe Wishbone wouldn’t quite have the range for the Roman plays—or maybe a Barking Brutus is exactly what Julius Caesar has been missing all these years.