It’s Fairy-land around here this summer…

Note – this is not a review per se. Or at least not something we’ve been offered or asked to review. And no, we haven’t gotten any books for free – unless you count the dozens of library books that the girls have checked out over the past 2 months… 

My girls are obsessed. With fairies.

It all began innocently enough during the school year, when my oldest (2nd grader) finally looked far enough away from the Junie B. Jones section at the school library to realize that yes, those are other actual books on all of those shelves. And some of them might be rather interesting too.

I think it had something to do with the fact that she’d already read every single Junie B. Jones book. And re-read them. And taken AR (Advanced Reader) tests on them. Or maybe Mrs P. (school librarian) may have ‘accidentally’ removed all of the Junie B. books from the shelves one day when Abby’s class was scheduled for library day? We may never truly know.  But what’s important here is that Abby read something else. And liked it.

When school ended in June, I started taking the girls to the library on Mondays. Partly to keep them occupied for a good hour or two every week, partly so there would be something other than Junie B. books (yes, we own the entire series. And yes – Abby was still checking them out from the school library anyway) in the house, and partly because the library has always been one of my favorite places to hang out and I hope that the girls will grow up with fond memories of it as well.

So on our first library trip (after I’d paid the hefty few fines we’d accumulated since last summer’s book losing borrowing experience), Abby checked out a couple of books from the Rainbow Magic series by Daisy Meadows (the ‘author’ is actually a pseudonym for a group of children’s writers from the UK who actually pen these books) and illustrated by Georgie Ripper. I forget now what else she checked out (if anything) or what books Hannah (my 6-1/2-year-old) checked out. But what occurred during that particular week is that Hannah read and fell in love with these books. And that just made Abby even more excited about them as well.

Now I do have to say that these are really cute books. And totally appropriate for young girls to be reading (at least in my own opinion). There’s a certain plotline that every one of them follows – that has to do with the main characters, two young girls named Rachel and Kirsty, who are ‘friends’ with the fairies, who retrieve particular items that have been stolen by the villain (Jack Frost) and his horde of goblins. What I love about these is that even Jack Frost isn’t necessarily ‘evil’ so much as perhaps a bit misguided, lazy and selfish. And the goblins might actually succeed every once in a while if they would stop bickering with each other and maybe learn to work together a bit. Rachel and Kirsty (and whichever fairy they’re helping in any particular book) are always able to outthink or outsmart the goblins to successfully return the stolen item back to fairyland where it belongs.

You can probably recognize the underlying ‘themes’ at work here…  But the authors do a pretty good job of not making the books overly ‘preachy’ about them. And although the plot repetition can be a bit – dull for grownups, the girls haven’t seemed to either notice or care. I do have to say that the authors must have quite the imagination themselves in order to come up with so many different ways to pretty much write the same fluff story. 

Each book involves one particular fairy and her special, magical item that’s been stolen away. There are many different kinds of fairies – jewel fairies, pet keeper fairies, petal fairies, ‘day’ fairies… Pretty much as many different kinds as the authors’ imaginations can dream up (and apparently more series that are only available in the UK – arrgh!). And every fairy has a name and a signature look (as depicted on the book covers and in the line drawings that illustrate many of the pages). So our house is full of discussion about “Louise the Lily Fairy”, “Ella the Rose Fairy”, “Lauren the Puppy Fairy”, “Molly the Goldfish Fairy”, “Pearl the Cloud Fairy” – well, you get the idea. And yes, my girls have them all memorized – along with what each of them looks like, is wearing, and which magical item is stolen from which fairy in ‘her’ book.

Even my 3-year-old loves to ‘read’ these chapter books. Which usually involves her flipping through the book to look at all of the pictures. And she’s just as gaga over the fairies as her big sisters are. The girls all play ‘fairies’ almost every single day – pretending to be either the fairies themselves, or to be Rachel and Kirsty helping out the fairies. Or any combination of the above. Even Abby, whose pretend play is usually limited by her Asperger’s can generally follow the ‘script’ well enough to act the storylines out with her sisters.

So yes, we’re pretty much all fairies, all the time here nowadays. But truly – I can think of much worse things for them to be reading, or playing at. The Rainbow Magic books are completely wholesome, promote good values, and best of all – hold the girls’ interest. To the exclusion of almost anything else.    Our library trips have become all about who can find which books – usually involving visiting even the carts of just-returned books and hounding pestering checking with the library staff to see which books have been returned but haven’t even made it to the carts yet. And yes, Abby and Hannah will check out two of the same book because oh my goodness, don’t even suggest that they could possibly just simply share one copy of it. Since they’re all going to the same house and all…  I feel sorry for any other little girls who are obsessed with into these books this summer because the reason you can never find any copies of them at the library? They are all at my house. Sorry!

Well, I’m off to go round up Abigail the Breeze Fairy, Hannah the Crystal Fairy (she had to make up her own since (gasp!) the name Hannah hasn’t been used for one of these books yet), and Rebecca the Rock-and-Roll Fairy. Oh, and who am I, you might ask? I’ve been dubbed Queen Titania of Fairyland. 

Another note: We’ve also just discovered the website – and I saw on Wikipedia that a television series is currently in development. Yikes – I have the feeling that the fairies are here to stay for a while… 

So what about you? What are your kids’ favorite books to read (or have read to them) this summer?