FernFolio » fairy tales

Ingo by Helen Dunmore

fernfolio — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:57:19 +0000

Sapphire and her older brother, Conor, live with their parents in a small cottage at the edge of the sea. Together, Sapph and Conor spend their summers climbing down the cliffs to the small sandy cove near their home, where they explore the narrow caves, study the tidal pools, swim in the ocean, and eat picnics on the beach. Though they must watch for the changing tide, so they won’t be caught by the its rip and swept out to sea, the two stick close together, looking out for each other, as they have promised their parents.
Their father, Mathew Trewhella, a fisherman and photographer, shares their love of the sea, but cautions them to respect it; their mother, Jennie, is terrified of it, having been told long ago by a fortune-teller that she would die by drowning. Though her parents occasionally fight about Mathew’s fascination with the sea, and her mother’s fears, the family seems happy enough until one summer, when Sapphire is ten, Mathew go out in his boat, the Peggy Gordon, and never returns. After the Coast Guard’s search ends, and the Peggy Gordon is found wrecked upon the rocks, the family is forced to accept that Mathew Trewhella is dead.
Their father has been gone just over a year, and Sapph is still struggling to adjust to the changes his absence have brought to the family. Her mother, who used to be at home full time, is struggling to pay the bills by working long hours as a waitress. Her mother’s growing friendship with Roger, a diver, has Sapph feeling resentful and uncertain. When Conor starts avoiding her to spend long hours on his own down in the cove, Sapph follows him and discovers that him talking with a dark-haired girl out on the rocks. Confronted by his sister’s assertion that he’s been gone for hours, Conor seems bewildered.
When her brother takes off on his own again, Sapph returns to the cove and find a boy Conor’s age sitting on the rocks. The boy beckons and she joins him, only to discover that he isn’t a boy at all, but one of the Mer folk, half boy and half seal. Faro tells Sapph that Conor is away in Ingo with his sister, Elvira, and invites her to go there with him. With her hand on his wrist, the two dive into the sea and swim into an alien world of breathtaking beauty that enchants Sapph. With Faro’s careful coaching, she discovers that she can survive in Ingo without air, and that she seems to understand what the Mer folk are saying. Indeed, at times she feels that she can even comprehend the fish and the dolphins.
But the more time she spends in Ingo, the more Sapph struggles to remember her life up in Air, her mother, her brother, Conor, and the cottage. When she returns home, the hours and days seem out of balance; at times, long hours passed in Ingo are minutes on land, at others, short visits with Faro have her brother frantic with worry, trying to explain away her absence of more than twenty-four hours to their mother. Though Conor has enjoyed his visits away in Ingo, the underwater world exercises a pull on Sapph that she finds increasingly hard to resist. When he brother insists that she stop her visits to Ingo, Sapph is torn between her love for Conor, and her need to escape the sadness and confusion of her father’s disappearance in the oblivion of the sea. Then danger threatens the family’s fragile stability, and Sapph must make a final, desperate journey away to Ingo.
Written by Helen Dunsmore, Ingo is a beautiful and moody story about grief and loss, and a girl’s journey in search of understanding and acceptance. Sapphire, her brother, Conor, and their Mer friends, Faro and Elvira, are nuanced characters whose strengths and weaknesses are entirely credible and compelling. Ingo is magic!
FernFolio Editor

Such a Prince by Dan Bar-el and John Manders

fernfolio — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:12:37 +0000

The Once Upon a TIMES reports that Princess Vera is deathly ill, and that her father, the King, is frantic. Fortunately, Libby Gaberchik, fairy and healer, knows just what is wrong with the dear girl. Love. The princess is starved for it.
So Libby tells the king that Vera must eat three perfect peaches and marry within a week of eating them. Soon young men from all over have flocked to the castle, each bearing three peaches, but none of them are perfect peaches.
In a small cottage lives a poor widow with her three sons, Sheldon, Harvey and Marvin. Sheldon, the eldest, picks the three best peaches in their orchard and tries his luck with Princess Vera, but reckons without Libby Gaberchik, whom he meets in the forest that surrounds the castle. Sheldon’s rudeness proves to be his downfall, and he returns home in shame. Harvey fairs no better, so, finally, the youngest, Marvin, takes his chance.
Unlike his older brothers, Marvin is skinny and kind to a fault. When he meets Libby Gaberchik in the forest, he passes her test with flying colours and earns her quiet help in his quest to win Princess Vera’s hand in marriage, and bring his poor old mother to live with them in the castle.
Marvin is going to need all the help that Libby can give him, for the King fancies someone more polished and important than Marvin for his only child, and is prepared to do anything he can to prevent a marriage between them!
Told from Libby’s perspective, this fairy tale of Princess Vera and her kindly but rather hapless suitor, Marvin, is warmly engaging and fun. A terrific story about two young people, and the charmingly plain-speaking and unassuming fairy who steps in to help them. Lovely illustrations by John Manders!
FernFolio Editor

Tiktala by Margaret Shaw-MacKinnon and László Gál

fernfolio — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:45:17 +0000

A young girl named Tiktala wants to become a soapstone carver so that she can become rich and famous, but is told by a village elder that she must go in search of a spirit helper. Transformed into a harp seal, she meets Tulimak, a seal who hates humans, who has been chosen to help her. Together they must travel to the summer fishing grounds, before setting out for the great meeting place, where seals meet to have their pups. On the journey Tiktala learns the beauty of the sea and its many creatures, and of harp seals, awkward on land but swift and sleek in water. When she risks her life to save that of a seal pup, Tiktala discovers her connection to the animals of the north, and welcomes her carver spirit.
Margaret Shaw-MacKinnon’s lovely story of Tiktala’s rediscovery of her traditional Inuit beliefs is accompanied by the hauntingly beautiful paintings of László Gál.
FernFolio Editor

Things are Looking Grimm, Jill by Dan Bar-el

fernfolio — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 01:05:19 +0000

Eleven year-old Princess Jill, sister to King Jack and daughter to Mother Goose, is spoilt and impulsive and prone to trying to sneak out of doing her chores, but she’s also brave and smart and determined, so, when she receives a message from someone known only as F.G., urgently asking for her help in the nearby Kingdom of Grimm, she sets out immediately.
Accompanied only by a very contrary girl named Mary, whose negative outlook on life helps keep her focused, Jill makes her way across Grimm, discovering along the way that the girls and women of the land seem to have fallen into a trance that has them all enamoured of Prince Charming and determined to be chosen as his bride at an upcoming ball given by his parents, the King and Queen of Grimm. This enchantment has made allies of former enemies, including Gretel and the witch, and Snow White and her stepmother, and has caused Rapunzel to forget her noble prince and dream of marriage to Charming.
With the help of the men of Grimm, Jill and Mary find F.G., a fairy godmother and friend to Cinderella, and learn that the enchantment of girls and women is all part of a nefarious plan, on the part of a monster named Iron Hands, to steal the kingdom’s gold. As the hours tick away and the ball approaches, Jill and Mary must rescue Prince Charming, his parents, and the kingdom’s elves from the castle in which they are held prisoner, find a way to free the women of Grimm from their enchantment, and see to it that everyone does, in fact, get to live happily ever after!
Things are Looking Grimm, Jill is a clever and amusing story about the characters who inhabit the nursery rhymes and fairy tales of our childhood. Dan Bar-el has Jill and Mary and their friends jumping off the page and into our imaginations!
Things are Looking Grimm, Jill won the 2008 Silver Birch Express prize!
FernFolio Editor

The Frog Princess by E. D. Baker

fernfolio — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:42:38 +0000

Princess Esmeralda is the despair of her mother. Lacking in the social graces, clumsy and bored by self-absorbed suitors, she prefers exploring the flora and fauna of the swamp and visiting her aunt Grassina, a witch, to attending formal balls. When she trips and frightens away some grasshoppers in the swamp one day, a frog complains that she has deprived him of his dinner. Upon discovering that she is a princess, the frog asks for a small favour, a kiss to change him back into a prince. But, when she finally places her lips on those of the frog, something unexpected happens. Esmeralda is transformed into a frog herself and needs Eadric’s help to survive in her new body. Fortunately, Eadric proves to be a very chivalrous sort of frog, willing to show Emma how to swim and hop and catch flies, though he finds her initial ineptitude hilarious. He also shows her that a frog’s life can be a pleasant one, filled with twilight concerts of peepers and bullfrogs at the stream’s edge and mornings frolicking in the pond, just as long as you can find enough to eat and avoid being eaten!
But Emma wants to be human again, and persuades Eadric to go in search of the witch who cast the spell on him. Their search ends when a witch catches them and places them in a cage, ready to be used in a spell to give her everlasting youth and beauty. Fortunately, Emma makes friends with the other creatures held captive by the witch and, with their help, works a little magic of her own to free them all.
Emma’s and Eadric’s travels take them next through a magic forest, full of wonderful enchantments and hidden dangers, accompanied and, possibly, protected by a snake named Fang and a timid little bat named Li’l.
Fortunately, this is a fairy tale so in the end our friends live happily ever after, but not before they experience both excitement and terror, and learn some very important lessons about magic.
We have all read the fairy tale of the spoilt princess who agreed to invite a frog home in exchange for rescuing her golden ball from the bottom of the pond. In this story has been transformed by E. D. Baker, whose characters are endearing and believable and funny, and who proves that a good book is pure magic.
The Girls’ Book Club has chosen The Frog Princess as one of their second books of the year.
FernFolio Editor

The Sisters Grimm Book Four: Once Upon a Crime by Michael Buckley

fernfolio — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:26:29 +0000

Eleven year-old Sabrina and seven year-old Daphne Grimm are descendants of Wilhelm Grimm, famed author of Grimm’s fairytales, and heirs to his legacy. Though the world believes that his fairytales are just made-up stories, it seems that Wilhelm did no more than write accounts of the fairy tale characters, or Everafters, whom he knew, and made it his life’s work to help them find safe refuge in an increasingly complex world.
In this fourth book of the Sisters Grimm series, Sabrina and Daphne leave Ferryport Landing for New York City with their Granny Relda, Mr. Hamstead, who is one of the Three Little Pigs, and Mr. Canis, The Big Bad Wolf, to seek help for Puck, the mischievous fairy who has been terribly injured protecting Sabrina from the Jabberwocky. It seems that Faerie, the Fairy Kingdom, is hidden somewhere in the city, and, to save Puck, the sisters and their friends must find it.
While Sabrina and Daphne do manage to locate the entrance to Faerie, their troubles aren’t over for, while they are there, Oberon, King of the Fairies, is murdered and the girls are called upon to investigate the crime and bring the perpetrator to justice. So begins their desperate bid to find the murderer and save the Kingdom of Faerie for its rightful heir.
Once Upon a Crime is a madcap adventure in which two rather brave girls pit themselves against fairies, pigs, magicians and a host of other magical creatures. This book will appeal to lovers of fairytales and fantasy who possess a strong sense of the absurd!
FernFolio Editor

Diary of a Fairy Godmother by Esmé Raji Codell

fernfolio — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:16:26 +0000

Hunky Dory is at the head of her class at Charm School. She is first in spelling and almost always Miss Harbinger’s class pet. But, when she makes an uninvited visit to a Christening party with her Auntie Malice, something in this young witch begins to change. She can’t help herself from offering the baby a little gift in the form of a spell to mitigate the one her aunt has given, and is startled by the tingling feeling she gets after her good deed. It’s also when she first hears of F.G.s, fairy godmothers, those trite little beings who go around granting wishes. Hunky begins to question whether she truly is destined to be the “Baddest Witch Wherever the Four Winds Blow”, as her mother predicts, and starts to think that possibly, just possibly, she’s really cut out to be a fairy godmother.
Armed only with her wand, her diary and her copy of ‘Be the One with the Wand’, Hunky sets off to discover her destiny. What she learns it that witches and F.G.s aren’t nearly as different as she expected, that sometimes you have to make your own path in life, one that is unique and entirely right for you.
Diary of a Fairy Godmother is a fun, smart book for girls. I’m glad that the Girls’ Book Club chose it for their first novel.
FernFolio Editor

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

fernfolio — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 14:39:38 +0000

When Peter notices the sailor’s reaction to an old trunk that is being loaded onto the Never Land, he becomes curious. Why does the sailor seem so happy when he touches the truck through the canvas that has been wrapped around it? Why does he seem reluctant to take his hand away?
Peter and five other young boys are being sent from their orphanage, St Norbert’s Home for Wayward Boys, in England, to Rundoon, where they will become servants to King Zarboff the Third. Peter has heard strange and worrisome stories about the king, and his unhappy luck with servants. People who work for King Zarboff don’t seem to live very long.
On board the ship, Peter spends his days trying to look out for his friends by finding more appetising food than the slop they are fed by Slank, the first officer, and by looking for ways to get himself and the others free from the fate that awaits them in Rundoon.
Peter spends many nights slipping around the ship looking for the trunk and, when he finds it, quickly realises that there is something very peculiar about the battered wooden box. Has it caused Peter to think that rats can fly, or are they actually drifting around in the room next to the trunk?
He befriends Molly Aster, a young girl travelling to Rundoon to meet her ambassador father, who warns him to stay away from the trunk because its contents are very dangerous. Then one night Peter watches as Molly stands at the rail of the ship and talks to some porpoises in the water. It is clear, from her expression, that she has received some very bad news. She tells Peter that pirates are coming to capture the Never Land and seize the trunk, and that, if they are successful, it will change the course of human history for the trunk contains star stuff, the most powerful magical element on Earth.
Pirates, sailors, both good and bad, “savages” with clear views on just how civilised Englishmen are, giant crocodiles, mermaids, secret societies working for the protection of mankind and those seeking world domination, Peter and the Starcatchers has it all. This prequel to Peter Pan, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, is a fast-paced, exciting, and cleverly written adventure that will have you holding your breath and laughing by turns. Thank you to Jacob, who recommended that I should read it!
FernFolio Editor

Ingrid and the Wolf by André Alexis

fernfolio — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:19:50 +0000

For Ingrid, spending the summer in her family’s small apartment in Parkdale, while her parents work and her best friend, Alice, travels to Hawaii, seems impossibly boring and lonely. So, when a letter arrives from her grandmother, the Countess Liliane Montesquieu von Puffdorf di Turbino de la Louve des Balazs, a grandmother she has ever even heard of, much less met, Ingrid is surprised and intrigued.
The Countess Liliane wishes to meet her grand-daughter, and has sent Ingrid a plane ticket so that she can fly to Hungary and spend her summer holidays on the Balazs family’s estate. Ingrid wants to go; she wants to meet this mysterious grandmother and learn why her father turned his back on his noble heritage and moved to Canada, where he works as a gardener. She begins to have strange dreams of a wolf, dreams so frightening that Ingrid is scared to go to sleep at night. As the day of her departure for Hungary approaches, it looks more and more as though the solution to Ingrid’s nightmares lies somewhere in, or under, her father’s childhood home.
Ingrid and the Wolf is a modern fairytale that will hold your attention right to the last page! It was nominated for a Governor General’s Prize for Literature for Children in 2006. Question: Why the fork?
FernFolio Editor