Friday 3 May 2013

Playing with Peril: Fairies in Children's Books

by guest blogger, Paula Harrison





Paula Harrison is the author of Faerie Tribes (for older readers) and The Rescue Princesses (a younger series). She wanted to be a writer from a young age but spent many happy years being a primary school teacher first. She finds inspiration in lots of things from cloud shapes to snippets of conversation. She loves sandy beaches and eating popcorn. She lives with her husband and children in Buckinghamshire, which is nowhere near the sea. Whenever possible, she packs her family into the car and journeys far and wide to find a sandy beach where she can paddle in the waves.
It came to me one teatime – one of those goose bump ideas. You know: the kind that make you run round the room searching for a pen. Fairies live among us.

But these fairies weren’t the tiny creatures that live under a toadstool at the bottom of the garden. They look like us. They talk like us. Your next door neighbour could be one of them and you would never know.

The first thing that happened was that my fairies turned into faeries, because apparently this is what you do if you want to make it clear that you’re writing for children aged 9 + and there will be darkness in the story. The spelling change made me think about some of the different representations of these magical folk in children’s books. (I’ve left out YA here and focussed on books up to ages 12/13) First up there are the kinds of fairies you get in young, girl-skewed series such as the popular Rainbow Fairies.


These small creatures are beautiful and friendly and perform all sorts of useful tasks as guardians of pets, flowers, special occasions and so on. Is it all sweetness and light? Not completely, because you also have a magical villain called Jack Frost with his goblins.
The fairies in Michelle Harrison’s Thirteen Treasures trilogy are a lot less friendly than those in young fiction and are quite capable of inflicting serious harm if you get on the wrong side of them. These fairies remind me of the ones found in many folktales: capricious and not to be trusted. Also for older readers, the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer gives you a completely different take on the wee folk. I love these fairies and the way they combine magic with technology. They fly around kitted out with all sort of gadgetry and there’s even a centaur as the technology whizz.


So how did I want to represent my fairies, I mean faeries? I knew from the start that they would belong to different tribes and that Laney, my main character, would be a member of the Mist tribe even though she doesn’t know that at the start. Mist faeries draw their power from water and can perform great things with it. Other tribes would draw on their own elemental powers.

I wanted them to feel a strong connection to the landscape around them, even though they’re hiding their true nature from the human community they live in. I also knew that not all of them would be good and that using a faerie’s “dust” (their dead body) would bring the greatest power and the greatest curse of all. 

There are lots more children’s books with fairies in that I haven’t covered here. What are your favourites? Let me know in the comments! Faerie Tribes: The Crystal Mirror is out now!

15 comments :

  1. It would be rude not to mention my series NAUGHTY FAIRIES (for Hodder). Pet bumblebees, St Juniper's broken flowerpot classrooms and farting aphids feature heavily, as do several dastardly pink fairies from the posh school over the hedge, Ambrosia Academy!

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  2. Wonderful! Thanks for that phraseandfable!

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  3. Lots of fairy books around, especially in YA. Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa, Wings series by Aprilynne Pike, Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr, 13 Treasures series by Michelle Harrison, Elemental Reality by Cesya Marae Cuono, Knife series by R.J Anderson, Tithe series by Holly Black, Shadow Falls series by C.C Hunter.

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  4. Fantastic! Thanks Becky! But isn't it funny how there's a lot of portrayals of fairies in young fiction and YA, and not so many in middle grade?

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    1. That is curious ... was it a factor in deciding to side a middle grade faeries book or wad this always percolating in your novel churning machine, Paula?

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    2. WRITE not side!

      WAS not wad!

      My predictive text is getting dumber and dumber!

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    3. I just had an idea, Candy. I don't think much about whether there's a gap for certain things because it seems silly, also by the time you've written it the gap may be filled anyway.

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  5. Sorry a little late in, I’ve been to the doctors to find out that I’m 'Middle-aged.' OH fearie favourite's where to start ... For Grown-up's 'The Tooth Fairy' by Graham Joyce. For Boy's who can do better than ‘Artemis Fowl’ by Eion Colfer. For YA readers then fantastic ‘Wicked Lovely’ Series by Melissa Marr – which I can’t recommend enough. For middle-graders ‘Fearie Tribes - The Crystal Mirror’ by Paula Harrison. Still working on finding a really good ‘fea tale’ for early readers as they all tend to be softer lighter. Great post by the way Paula!

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  6. There are so many portrayals of fairies (faeries, fey) in stories I find it fascinating to read about them. In my own writing I use my interpretation of elves and sprites a lot. I'll look out for your book.

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  7. Paula, I love your ideas! And you have so many of them and then you write them down and then they become lots of books. Do you have a fairy godmother tucked away? Thanks so much for your post and may your books sell in their millions.

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    1. Thanks Addy! Or at least if they don't sell in millions may it be enough to buy a chocolate cake.

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  8. Catherine Johnsosn's Obsidian Mirror has bad fairies and content-wise is fine for upper MG. I also read a lovely and very original book called Small Persons with Wings by Ellen Booraem-but I agree-not enough non-pink and non-sparkly fairies for Middle Grade!

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  9. I used to love the Flower Fairies when I was younger but I can't remember what age they were written for - maybe I was in junior school?

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  10. I absolutely LOVE the idea of fairy dust being made from dead fairies. BRILLIANT. And so obvious once a clever person's thought of t!

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    1. Thanks Maureen! It's so much fun to take something well known and twist it, I think.

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