What would you think if you found an old bottle hidden in a tree? This is a tree that you and your friends hang around all the time and you have no idea how the bottle got there. What if you opened the cork on it and rubbed the side to read what it said and then strange things started happening such as when you made a wish like wishing there was no school or that your teacher was nicer? In The Bailey School Kids: Genies Don’t Ride Bicycles by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones, that is exactly what is starting to happen.

Our four familiar friends, Eddie, Howie, Melody and Liza, find themselves dealing with what they only thought was a fairy tale. Not only after random wishes started coming true, a new neighbor shows up on a purple bicycle. He has fixed up the messy backyard full of trash next door to the school, their strict teacher, Ms. Jeepers is being creepy nice and Eddie’s Dad has a new red sports car to drive around. Howie and the girls come to the conclusion that the new guy in town must be a genie and the bottle they found released him. Howie even finds a book on genies with a picture in it that looks exactly like the new guy in town that is always around when they are making wishes.

Now the kids have to prove to Eddie and themselves that they are in fact dealing with a real genie. The crew decides that they need to come up with some wishes that would never come true on any other normal day. Without thinking, Liza wishes that they could all have pizza, fries and chocolate everyday for lunch and guess what, the food delivery truck for the school broke down and couldn’t make it’s delivery. No broccoli casserole for lunch….

As with every story about genies, the kids quickly learn that you must be very careful of what you wish for. Genies are tricky and you never know how your wish is going to actually turn out. Now their town is in danger of massive flooding and everyone has gone wacko from what was thought to be wishes to make things a happier and better place. Now the kids need to come up with a plan to get everything back to normal, but do they have enough wishes left to get the job done?