THE FAIRY CHRONICLES SERIES

I've known about these books for a few years, since one of the gift shops on St. George Island, where my family used to vacation, had a handful of them. I never bought any, because they were a bit pricey, but when I saw two of them in a local discount store for $1.99, I grabbed them. 

Here's a link to the homepage:
http://www.fairychronicles.com/
You can see a lot of the cute art there, though I've got some scans for you with this review.

One of the books I got was Thistle's, which is #3 in the series. I read it and was hooked, so I got the rest from Paperback Swap, ebay and Abebooks. 

The Fairy Chronicles follow the adventures of young girls who have fairy spirits. They can turn from their human selves into 6" tall fairies. Each has a wand and a little outfit based on her fairy spirit. They each have special powers, too, mostly based on their fairy spirit. The moth fairies are stronger at night, for example, and the Dove fairy is peaceful. Some of them are "thinker" fairies, like Primrose, who can solve mysteries, and Rosemary, who has an amazing memory. The girls usually start off at about 9, though some are 11 by the series end. Each book seems to add more and more new fairies, so by the end, you rarely see the original group anymore. There are a LOT of characters, because in addition to the young fairies, you've got a ton of older fairies who act as mentors. The fairy world is very complex and well thought out, which is what got me hooked. 

There are also tons of other magical creatures, like brownies, elves, unicorns, dragons, gremlins, witches, merfolk, griffins, chimera, dwarves, and on and on. 

The books are similar to the American Girl series in age level. They're about the same size print and thickness. They're quite formulaic on the whole. You meet the main fairy of the story at the beginning and then you learn what she looks like as a fairy, sometimes what her friends look like, how the fairy world works, how the mentors help them attend Fairy Circle meetings without their parents knowing, etc. Then you go to Fairy Circle and learn what fairies eat (it's in every book, I swear) and maybe meet a few newbies. Then Madam Toad, the fairy in charge, describes the current peril and assigns some fairies to that mission. They complete the mission (sometimes a little too fast) and wrap things up. 

One of the best things about the series is its diversity. Unfortunately, it's almost one of the worst things, too. Because they're trying so hard to include many types of people, the character development suffers. You meet a fairy in one book and maybe she co-stars in a couple missions and then she's just there for Fairy Circle sometimes and she's done. So it's hard to get attached to the characters. But we've got black fairies, a Mexican fairy, a half-Japanese fairy, an American Indian fairy (who's also adopted), a deaf fairy, and a homeschooled fairy. In the final book, you meet Harlequin, who is the only known fairy with a snake spirit. She has no wings, so I'm wondering if she would have been portrayed as kind of a disabled fairy in her own book, which was the next in the series, but never got published. I got the feeling from the text that she would have been kind of like Rani from Disney Fairies, where the winged ones have to keep an eye on her, because she isn't able to do everything they can. 

The fairies on the whole are a little too good. One of my favorites was Dewberry, who's the fairy of knowledge. Her book had her so eager to prove herself that she caused a problem so drastic that Mother Nature had to give the world a "repeat day" so the problem never occurred. Dewberry learned that knowledge isn't wisdom, which comes from experiences, which aren't earned by being impatient and reckless. Although in my opinion, she was screwed over. They deliberately tried to hide this old legend so no one would follow it and find this chest that contained some major evils spells, but all they would have had to do was tell the legend properly and people would understand that there's some bad shit in that chest and to leave it the hell alone. Dewberry doesn't lose her fairy spirit, but she's kind of put on hold for a year so she can mature some more. I still think she got screwed. Her book pissed me off, but also it was nice because it was one of the only ones that didn't follow the formula of the majority of the books. 

Speaking of losing fairy spirits, that can happen if the young fairies use their powers without permission from their mentors. They also can't use fairy magic to solve everyday problems. One fairy, whose name I've forgotten, loses her fairy spirit. It's never said what she did. Then Mimosa has a whole book about this. She lost her father and she's terrified that if her mother doesn't stop smoking, she'll lose her, too. Her mother wants to quit, but she can't seem to manage it. Mimosa does a stupid spell that makes all her mom's cigarettes vanish. Yeah, like that's gonna work. Then she gets in trouble with the older fairies, who give her a warning. But she continues on with her quest anyway, having a witch make her a magic seed that will stop her mother's addiction. She has a few days before she can use the seed, so she can think on her decision. She knows if she uses it, she will lose her fairy spirit. She gets sent on a quest and you really think she's going to learn that the easy way isn't the best way, but no, she uses the seed and loses her spirit. It's actually quite interesting, because she goes against what you think these little fairies are. 

Okay, enough rambling. Let's look at some pictures. The cover artist is the best. She does a good job of making the girls look younger, though the inside artwork makes them look older.



Dragonfly is one of the two black fairies. I love her design, but her character was a smidge too much like Dawn from the BSC. She's in the earliest books, then disappears for quite some time.





Cinnabar is the other black fairy. She's my favorite overall. I love her design and she's got a quiet, reserved personality, which is nice. She's a ballerina, which I only just realized is like Jessi from the BSC. She's not like Jessi otherwise though. 





Here's Dewberry, who I talked about above.





Luna has my second favorite design. She's the Mexican fairy. She's extremely powerful and can do magic without her wand. 



Dove is the half-Japanese fairy (shown with Snapdragon). She was introduced in the latest books, so you don't see much of her, but I think I would have liked her a lot.



Here's Harlequin, the wingless snake spirit fairy. She's with Marigold and Madam Monarch. 



And some cute bat fairies that the girls had to rescue in Luna's book, which is my favorite of the series.

I just realized I don't have any pictures of Periwinkle. She's the American Indian fairy who's adopted. She has a little snail spirit guide that only she can see. Here she is:
http://www.fairychronicles.com/Meet-the-Fairies/About-Periwinkle.html

So yeah, the Fairy Chronicles is a good series if you like fairy stuff. I really enjoyed reading the books and wish these girls had some dolls. I'd love Cinnabar and Luna in particular!

ETA: Okay, I copied and pasted this from an old LJ entry and I usually do "paste as plain text," but I wanted to keep the images with this post, so I just pasted and now the entire entry is in tiny text and oddly white. Oh, well. I'm not good with technomolology.