GENRE: Children's Fiction
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: A
SYNOPSIS: This captivating collection presents a score of stories from a mysterious kingdom of fantastical creatures in an anthology of 20 tales about fairies, princesses, dragons, mermaids, unicorns and wizards. Explore the mysterious world of the fairies and elves; follow the adventures of the dreamland fairies, whose task it is to choose the right dream for everyone; then discover the secrets of the princess fairies have palaces and pretty dresses, but they can also do magic! Find out more about these fascinating creatures and how they use their special powers to help make the world a wonderful and beautiful place.
Enjoy irresistible stories such as the Blossom Ball, Princess Rose's Secret and The Butterfly Babies. This enchanting illustrated storybook is sure to engage all young readers, being perfect for reading aloud to small children, or for more confident readers to enjoy by themselves. The cover of the book is decorated with shiny silver foil and glittery stars.
SUMMARY: This book was previously published by the same publisher in 2012 under the title My Treasury of Fairies & Elves and it has a different cover. I think all of these stories have been published previously in either their own books or in compilations. Her book The Magical World of Fairies has some of these stories in it. There's a section of stories in here called "The Dreamland Fairies" and those appear to be from her book "Dreamland Fairies." There's a section of stories in here called "The Fairy Princesses" and those six stories are from "Storybook of Fairy Princesses", also known as "Fairy Princesses." The first section of stories are called "The Magical World of Fairies & Elves" and contains eight stories, some of which I know are in other compilations. I haven't seen a fairies compilation of hers that has more stories in it than this one.
MY THOUGHTS: This is a large and heavy 240 page hardcover without a dust jacket. It has a built-in ribbon bookmark, but I didn't use that. The page edges are silver. It's fully illustrated in full-color. The illustrations are beautiful and very colorful. Most characters have the same face and they're ugly so that's really the only negative in this whole book. Images from the title pages of all twenty stories are here. Random images from the book that I like are here. Click on all images to enlarge them.
All but a couple of the stories are cute and/or interesting and are appropriate for small children. There are only a couple stories where everyone in it isn't blonde. There aren't many elves in this either.
I'm going to summarize the twenty stories below.
THE TIME OF BEGINNINGS- It's almost spring and Queen of the Fairies visits the realm to check on everyone. They fill her in on what's going on. Vernal is a female fairy and she's in charge of making sure things get done. The other fairies tell her about problems involving all the creatures in the woods and streams, such as a baby duck getting stuck in the mud and eggs in a nest that are unattended. Since the sun shone on Vernal's face and warmed it, she announced to the fairies that it was time for everyone to fly for the first time since winter (fairies can't fly in the winter.) The story ends with a baby fairy being born. This is a really cute story about helping others out.
THE ROYAL FLYING RACE- A group of fairies, Leafe, Bramble, Azure, Swift, Barley, live in Fairyland. Someone gets the idea to have a race, young fairies versus older. The Queen is to attend, making it a royal race, and she gives out prizes at the end.
THE BUTTERFLY BABIES- This story is really cute. It's about two young fairies, Catkin and Rosebud. They find butterfly eggs, keep it a secret so only they can tend to them themselves. They don't understand that butterflies come from caterpillars, so when they see black things wiggling around in the web, they're very scared and think they're black monsters. Another fairy, Silverbark, explains what they're seeing. Here's my favorite image from it.
THE BLOSSOM BALL- It's a midsummer party where the youngest fairies decide what their final names will be, if they decide to change it. They serve drinks made from honey, buttercup bread, cowslip cake, pollen pudding. Their dresses are made from flower petals, feathers, berries, seeds, and cobwebs.
THE FRUITS OF THE FOREST- Fairies meet at the Gathering to discuss what they're going to do during harvest time. The Fairy Queen overseas everything. She sends everyone out to gather grains, berries, nuts, to name just a few things. An unnamed fairy who shows up late to help ends up helping the Fairy Queen make things for the upcoming party.
THE UNINVITED GUEST- The image on the book's cover is from this story. This is basically part two of the previous story, The Fruits of the Forest, where they were about to begin a party to celebrate the end of harvest. Musicians are playing instruments made of acorn drums, snail-shell horns, and seed-pod shakers. Strix, an owl, is the uninvited guest. The Queen of the Fairies invites him to the party since he's already there. He tells them a storm is coming and invites them to have the party inside the hollow base of an oak tree.
A WINTER'S JOURNEY- This is about how all the fairies have to find places to live for the upcoming winter season. They don't like to be outside in the winter and are unable to fly because their wings are too stiff from the cold. The Queen gets sick. A fairy named Merrydown takes a sunbeam they'd caught over the summer and on foot goes looking for the Queen. She finds her, releases the sunbeam into the room and the Queen gets better. Merrydown is invited to stay there for the winter.
THE SECRETS OF THE SNOW- This is an imaginative story. The fairies can't go out in the snow because they could get buried in, since they're so small. Shimmer, Shine, and Glitter live in a tree trunk. They get the idea to dig connecting tunnels in the snow so they can go outside. One tunnel leads to another tree trunk with another family living in it. They all play together until the snow begins to melt, then they have to go back to their own trees to wait out the winter.
A DREAM FOR EVERYONE- Some fairies from Dreamland help animals have happy dreams. The dream requests come to the fairies in the sky via a bubble that bursts. We meet Mrs. Matilda Rabbit and her five babies, Great Aunt Phoebe Frog and her great-nephew, Glurgle, Mr. Benjamin Bird, and a fish named Sammy. Fairies visit each one and help them dream. A fairy named Bluebell helps a rabbit dream of a pirate rabbit named Captain Thunderthump and he's got a peg leg!
A DREAM FOR DRAGONS- A fairy named Snowflake has to consult with the Dreamland Fairy to help her give good dreams to three dragons who live in a cave under a volcano. A wizard named Longbeard shows up out of nowhere to help Snowflake. They travel together on his magic carpet. They travel to a castle where a small green dragon named Ashe lives. He agrees to help them come up with dreams for the three dragons, then flies them both home on himself!
A DREAM FOR MERMAIDS- Marina is a water fairy and has no wings because she doesn't fly. She sees a mermaid crying tears of pearls and asks her what's wrong. She's crying because she misses her family. Marina travels up to the clouds to talk to the Dream Counsil. She tells them she wants to send the mermaids family a dream so they'll dream of her but that's not allowed. You can only send someone a dream if they've asked for it. Marina travels on a dolphin until she finds the mermaid's family. She overhears them talking of their sister so she asks them about it. Since their sister is on their minds, they send dream requests which are granted. Though they can't see their sister, they can at least dream about her.
A DREAM FOR UNICORNS- A fairy named Serena got a dream request from a unicorn, which is odd since unicorns never sleep. Children have stopped believing in unicorns, which is causing them to get sleepy. Serena and another fairy, Starlight, send unicorn dreams to children who've not asked for any specific dream.
A DREAM FOR A WIZARD- This story was very boring. It's about a male wizard named Moonbeam. He's an inspector and he wants to watch Marigold and Emmelina as they help others with their dreams requests.
A DREAM FOR YOU- A very boring story. We're told that we can do anything and be anything we want in a dream.
PRINCESS ROSE'S SECRET- Princess Rose has three sisters. She prefers to be outside as much as possible. She walks through a portal which is a floral archway, to follow a singing bird. She's shrunk in size and is sitting on a branch with the bird and she's now a fairy. She has the ability to hear all the animals and insects in the woods. Her sisters come to find her and the bird tells her she has to leave but can come back through the portal whenever she wants, so she reluctantly goes home. Her mother, the Queen, is sick. Only the juice from the petals of the Evening Star flower can cure her but the flower is nowhere to be found. A white dove, though it's yellow in the illustration, brings the flower to Rose's window, so she's able to cure her mother.
PRINCESS MAGNOLIA'S MAGIC- She's a little girl and she learns that like her mother could do at her age, she can do magic. The birds and flowers on her wallpaper come alive. A bird tells her he can lead her into a magic world whenever she wants, just come and find him. She was able to do good with her magic by turning a town that had been ruined by volcanic ash back to normal.
PRINCESS DAISY'S DARKNESS- Daisy and her dog Thor were out walking and heard a bird singing. The dog ran off and suddenly Daisy could fly. She had shrunk in size. She wished the approaching winter would skip them this year, so it did. Animals became sick and confused and plants died. Daisy and to find the singing bird to help her turn it back to winter.
THE PRINCESSES PRESENTS- Each of seven sisters thinks of which country they want to send their father, the King, to for his birthday. He apparently dreamed he'd traveled them all, which caused him to lose sleep. He told him what he really wanted for his birthday was to have a portrait painted of all of them together.
PRINCESS NERINA'S PROBLEM- She's a fairy princess, which means she can do magic. One day she's out riding her horse and decides to change her hair to black and her horse to black. Prince Aveme sees her and wants to marry her. He goes to her home one day and tells her parents he wants to marry her. Nerina comes out but she's not black-haired and her horse is back to white. She tells him about her magic and he's put off by it. He tells his mother. He then accepts Nerina's magic and they plan to get married.
MANY KINDS OF MAGIC- This is about the wedding of Nerina and Aveme, from the previous story. On the day of the wedding, it snows, causing guests, food, and musicians to not be able to get there. The princesses from The Princesses Presents are invited. They all worked their magic to clear the snow so the guests could arrive.
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