What to Read to Your Kids

“Mommy, can we plant some chives in our garden this summer?” my son asked me earlier this spring. “You know, for the fairies. It turns out they really, really like them.”

This was how I discovered that my seven year old had been spending his recess time, alongside several of his classmates, building fairy houses out of twigs, stones, moss, leaves, and mud; filling them with wild onion stems; and then returning the next day to discover with delight that things were not exactly as they’d left them. This obsession with fairy houses would later move into our own backyard (with the addition of miniature serving plates fashioned from the caps of milk bottles), and the momentum seems only to be building.

I don’t live under a rock, so I’m aware that fairies are EXTREMELY POPULAR. I was just a bit surprised that my skeptical and scientifically-minded son, the same being who reminds me that there is no such thing as witches, wizards, monsters, and dragons; who loves to do a magic trick and then immediately reveal the technique behind it; who appears (with the exception of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny) to have his two feet squarely rooted in reality—that this person would suddenly talk about fairies as if they were as ordinary an occurrence as the postal workers walking through our neighborhood. “I don’t have to see a fairy to know they’re real,” he told me. “Just look outside—there are signs everywhere.”

Don’t get me wrong. JP’s belief in fairy magic, in the idea of miniature people living miniature lives amidst the trees and leaves and grass, makes me bubble over with happiness. (Yes! Let’s believe in what we cannot see! Yes! Let’s find more reasons to play in the dirt!). But the best part? My son’s new-found interest presented the perfect excuse to purchase a book that I (shame on me) had been saving for when my daughter got a little bit older.

I’m frequently asked by parents for recommendations of fairy-themed chapter books. This isn’t just because fairy lore is undergoing a kind of comeback (or maybe it never left?). It’s also because, despite the high demand, there is a surprising dearth of quality literary offerings. Yes, I know your daughter is obsessed with the Rainbow Fairies series, for its colorful covers and overtly girly content, but have you tried reading one of those awkwardly-constructed, downright-insipid books aloud? Bleh. Let her read those on her own if she must. In the meantime, do both of you a favor and get your hands on Laura Amy Schlitz’s The Night Fairy, which is EVERYTHING A FAIRY BOOK SHOULD BE. This is reading aloud at its best.

Since it came out in 2010, The Night Fairy (Ages 5-10, if reading aloud) has become one of my favorite books to give as a gift. Hold the 117-page hardcover in your hands, and you know you are dealing with something special. It’s petite (as a book about a fairy should be); its pages are thick and glossy; and it features exquisite watercolor plates by British illustrator Angela Barrett. But here’s the clincher: the writing is absolutely exquisite. The descriptive passages soar. The action is tight. The multidimensional characters tug at our heartstrings. And—drum roll please—the story is steeped in the natural world, in the world right outside our front door.

What The Night Fairy does so refreshingly is to yank the subject of fairies out of the realm of fantastical kingdoms and magic wands and froofy dresses—and return it to its humble, delicate origins. When you strip the glitter off the fairies, you end up with a hint of darkness, a touch of danger and mystery and intrigue. Fairies, we learn, might be magical, but—like all living creatures—they are not invulnerable to the threats around them.

There are those who say that fairies have no troubles, but this is not true. Fairies are magical creatures, but they can be hurt—even killed—when they are young and their magic is not strong. Young fairies have no one to take care of them, because fairies make bad parents. Babies bore them. A fairy godmother is an excellent thing, but a fairy mother is a disaster.

Tell me you are not hooked! Alright, you need more? The book’s central character, Flory, is a so-called “night fairy,” meaning that she was born “a little before midnight when the moon was full.” Night fairies, we learn, perform their strongest magic at night, and Flory is further assisted by a pair of sheer, green wings with feathers on the end—“sensing feathers,” which are intended to alert her to approaching danger.

That’s all well and good, but Flory’s story begins with tragedy. When she is but three months old and smaller than an acorn, a bat mistakes Flory for a luna moth and crunches down on her wings. Flory’s instinct for survival is strong—she may be small, but she has the fight of a lion—and she decides to try life as a daytime creature, seeking solace in the sunshine, as she waits for her wings to grow back.

The story is packed with Flory’s subsequent adventures, each one born out of the necessity for shelter, food, and protection, and all set in the garden of a bird-loving human (or “giantess,” as the animals call her). Flory weaves rope bridges out of discarded spider webs, wields a thorn as a dagger in the face of an attacking preying mantis, and over time perfects a “stinging spell” to ward off pesky predators.

On every page, we are treated to the interconnectedness of the natural world: the harmony that comes from each creature playing its part. Flory’s greatest stride in self-preservation comes from a partnership she forges with a hungry squirrel named Skuggle, who agrees to let Flory ride on his back in exchange for her cleverness at releasing seeds from the garden’s many bird feeders.

Exciting adventures aside, what made the biggest impression on both of my children (hooray, another book that my children enjoyed together!) was Flory’s emotional development across the book. During the first half, Flory is brusque, rude, and bossy in her dealings with others (the narrator gently reminds us that she has no parent to guide her). Her actions are entirely self-serving. And yet, as she begins to appreciate the diversity of her surroundings, her heart begins to soften in empathy for the other creatures in the garden. She learns to forgive. She learns to listen. She even learns to apologize—and to mean it (“She shut her eyes and tried to imagine being sorry. It was hard work, almost like casting a spell.”)

When Flory puts the needs of others before her own, she opens herself up to the possibility of becoming a hero. And, in the book’s nail-biting climax, Flory becomes just that, successfully rescuing a mommy-to-be hummingbird from the entrapment of a spider’s web and keeping the hummingbird’s eggs warm until the return of their mother. Without even realizing it, Flory simultaneously finds her way back to the rightful realm of a night fairy, to the unique beauty of a moonlit night at the stroke of midnight. She can go back to sleeping during the day.

When we were about halfway through The Night Fairy, I came across JP slipping the book into his backpack one morning. He had mentioned the previous night that he wanted to “read ahead” at school, but that he would bring back the book at the end of the day. So, I wasn’t surprised when I saw him. I was, however, surprised by the exchange that followed:

“I know that I am going to get a lot of comments when I take this book out at school,” he said.

“What do you mean? What kind of comments?” (Admittedly, I was feigning some ignorance.)

“You know, from kids who think fairies are only for girls.”

“Oh yeah? And what do you think” I asked him.

“I think that there is no such thing as girl stuff and boy stuff. Just lots of really fun stuff.”

“Me too,” I responded, smiling and walking away in my best impersonation of parental breeziness. Only on the inside, I was leaping with joy. Please, oh please, let him always feel this way!

Other Favorite Chapter Books About Fairies:
No Flying in the House, by Betty Brock & Wallace Tripp (Ages 6-12)
Twig, by Elizabeth Orton Jones (Ages 6-12)
Not specifically about fairies, but if you have a Lover of Little Things, I highly recommend the series, The Doll People, by Ann M. Martin. I cannot WAIT to do these with my kids!

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