The Collectors

The Collectors is the first book of a two-book series by New York Times bestselling author Jacqueline West. Through the eyes of a young boy called Van, West explores the challenges and benefits associated with being an outsider. The novel calls into question the validity of wishes and whether some are best left unfulfilled.

The novel follows the story of eleven-year-old Van who lives with his mother in New York City. Van is described as an outsider, someone who doesn’t quite fit in. He has a hearing impairment that requires him to wear hearing aids and makes it difficult for him to communicate with people around him. He relies on his ability to read lips and facial expressions, but this can sometimes prove challenging, as people don’t always face him when they speak, or they speak too quickly and he has trouble keeping up.

He and his family are constantly on the move as his mother is a celebrated opera singer, so Van has become accustomed to being the new kid in school. This also presents a barrier for him to establish long-lasting friendships, and while he loves the life he lives with his mother, he often wishes for a friend.



What Van lacks in hearing he makes up for with his keen sense of observation. Although he goes unnoticed by most people, he himself is very observant, noticing every detail of what is happening around him. He has a collection of objects that have been lost or discarded by the people he observes; their trash truly becomes Van’s treasure. He uses the found objects to add to his model stage, which he inherited from his father who was a set designer. It is the one thing Van hangs on to through every move.

Van’s curiosity is piqued one day in the park while watching a man flipping a coin into a fountain. Directly afterward, he notices a squirrel and a girl darting out of a nearby bush. Feeling immediately drawn to the girl, Van attempts to strike up a conversation with her. Just as he thinks he might be making progress, his mother comes calling after him, scaring off the girl and the squirrel who disappear back into the bush.

Van comes across them again later in the book. He learns that the girl is called Pebble and the squirrel is Barnavelt; he follows them to a strange building owned by a group of people called The Collectors. The building houses shelves lined with glass bottles of people’s collected wishes. Van is disturbed by the idea that there are people capturing innocent wishes and wonders what they plan to do with them, and how Pebble is involved in the scheme.



Van finds himself in a new predicament when he is kidnapped and questioned by the strange men from the underground chambers. They believe that Van knows too much, including their best-kept secrets. They send Van to steal something from Mr. Falborg, a collector, in order to redeem himself and prove his trustworthiness. Eager to impress the mysterious girl, Van agrees, setting out to uncover what he can before relaying the information back to Pebble.

After getting in touch with Mr. Falborg, Van receives an invitation to the man’s home to check out his collections. Mr. Falborg’s most cherished collection is the Wish Eaters, tiny creatures who have the power to grant people’s wishes by eating them. As a parting gift, Mr. Falborg generously provides Van with a Wish Eater of his own, but warns him that he is in danger; The Collectors are trying to imprison all Wish Eaters and Van must keep this one safe.

After his investigation of Mr. Falborg, Van feels more conflicted than ever. On the one hand, Pebble has been telling him that the Wish Eaters are dangerous and that The Collectors keep people safe, guarding against the reality of what would happen if wishes really did come true. She insists that not all wishes are meant to be granted and that they could often have unintended consequences. However, Mr. Falborg has told him an entirely different story, one that has Van wondering whose side he should be on.



Van is swayed by the persuasive powers of Mr. Falborg and freeing The Collectors’ Wish Eaters, although the book is left quite open-ended, and it is not stated how Pebble or The Collectors react to this.

Van’s disability helps him all along this journey, with his difficulty hearing forcing him to concentrate and to really listen, which is a key skill for a Collector. The book demonstrates how our shortcomings can allow us to excel in other areas of our lives, and that no disability can hold someone back from greatness.