Book Search: Fairies, elves, gnomes...

Wow! We loved the illustrations in this book, a true adaptation of the Snow White tale translated from Brothers Grimm. In the end the wicked queen puts on the red hot slippers and dances to her death, and I realize this is the translation from the original story, but our girls didn't understand why or how this happened. Otherwise, it is a fantastic, gripping read!

This was one of the books my parents read to me as a child, and we occasionally read stories from it. Please note that some of these stories may be considered too scary for young children.

This is truly an outstanding book that will appeal to a large audience. Our girls (then 10 and 7) hung on every word. I loved that this was about Laura Ingalls Wilder's great grandmother! There was a lot of research put into it and I loved reading all about Scotland, as my own mother was born there. I especially enjoyed how the author wove in retellings of fairy stories and myths. This is the first the series and we are very excited to continue on. PLEASE NOTE I am referring to the unedited version with the painted cover, not the one with the photographed cover (which amazon insists on linking to). I have not read both but I have heard that the 2nd version is considerably abridged.

I'm not sure how I found out about the chapter book Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks, but we all enjoyed it too. It is the story of how a fairy grants an unspoken wish of a woman to have a baby and all the trials they have to go through to bring the child into the world. I love the explanation of how fairy magic works. "Of course," Tiki [the fairy says] "I haven't enough magic to do that sort of trick. That's really very hard stuff, you needto save up for ages, not do any little bits of magic, just save and save. Some fairies can save for years to do something big, but somehow I never can...." But she borrows the magic from others and then pays them back.

K.Y. Craft has richly illustrated this classic fairy tale. In fact of all the versions of Cinderella we've read, this is our favorite, it's so beautiful.

A retelling of a Brothers Grimmfairy tale that Laurel loves is The Water of Life by TRina Schart Hyman. The illustraions in this book are fantastic! Trina Schart Hyman is agifted artist and we've really enjoyed her other books, such as The FortuneTellers. This is a classic fairy tale, with dwarfs that curse riders to get stuck in canyons, a gate that closes so fast that it nips off a bit of our hero's heel, brothers who betray each other, but all ends with the rightful prince getting the beautiful princess.

In my opinion this is one of the finest collections of fairy tales
I've read. They aren't syrupy and super-positive. They are gentle,
original stories of children overcoming their fears, learning powerful
lessons, and meeting magical spirits. We savor this book and I read
the a story from it every few weeks and it is a real treat the whole
family enjoys.

I was really impressed with this book! In addition to being ordinary girls, some girls are granted a fairy spirit, and can change into a fairy any time they wish. Magic is all around us, though we may see the garden Gnomes as eggplants and a fairy as a butterfly. This is the first in a series the my 7 yo is very anxious to hear more of!

This is a sweet and lengthy story of a little girl who is a "born
skipper." She began at 3, "By the time she was six her name and fame
were known to all the villages in the county. And by the time she was
seven, the fairies heard of her." Of course, we all love our fairy
stories! The fairies Skipping Master invites her to be his student
every new moon for a year, and she learns remarkable tricks like
skipping through her mother's keyhole! Many years pass, and trouble
arises - and a 109 year old Elsie has an idea to save the day... We
enjoyed the story, but beware, it took 35 minuets to read it.

This was the first book we ever owned like this - you open the whole book up and tie the ends together and wah-lah! Instant doll house. The book comes with little paper dolls that you can move up and down the stairs. This book provided hours and hours of play, and over the course of a couple years it was well loved and most of the fairies were lost. There is a story too, and it's OK, we only read it once or twice. The girls loved making up their own stories instead.