Fairy Fever

By Erin Allen

If there is a young girl living in your household, you are probably aware of the current craze for fairies. Yesteryear’s Tinkerbelle is still making her winged rounds, but she’s surrounded by more of her kind than you can shake a woodland stick at. Consider the following series publications.

Scholastic’s Rainbow Magic is a series of short chapter books written at a second grade level. In the original Rainbow Magic series, readers are introduced to Kirsty and Rachel. These ordinary girls share a fantastic secret – they are friends with the fairies. Fairyland royalty King Oberon and Queen Titania have enlisted their help to battle Jack Frost. Wicked Jack has banished the seven rainbow fairies from Fairyland. Each of the seven books details how Kirsty and Rachel manage to rescue one fairy who personifies a color in the rainbow (Ruby, Amber, Sunny, Fern, Sky, Inky, and Heather) and get home in time for dinner.

Similarly, the next two Rainbow Magic sub-series – Weather Fairies and Jewel Fairies – elicit the support of the two girls to thwart Jack Frost in more evil schemes against the fairy world.

These and other series may entice young readers with their age-appropriate vocabulary and innocent characters. Line drawings included on almost every page advance the story.

For the slightly more experienced reader, Pixie Tricks offers another avenue for those interested in the magical realm. In the fourteen-volume series, a girl named Violet and a fairy named Sprite must find ways to corral pixies that have escaped from their world into the human world. Twice as many pages as the Rainbow Magic series, readers will feel a sense of accomplishment as they complete each volume.

Finally, for the incurable fairyphile, there is Fairyopolis: A Flower Fairies Journal by Cicely Mary Barker. A beautiful book, it is one of the “Ologies” series that includes Dragonology, Pirateology, and Egyptology. This series embraces the magical thinking of childhood to present documentary-like information in journal form. Fairyopolis is written as a secret journal that reveals what happened to the author in 1920, when she discovered the fairy world. Inclusion of removable parts, fold-outs, maps, and a jewel-encrusted cover make this book a special experience.