SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Fusenews
  • Reviews
  • Librarian Previews
  • Best Books
    • Top 100
    • Best Books of 2022
    • Best Books of 2021
    • Best Books of 2020
    • Best Books of 2019
    • Best Books of 2018
    • Best Books of 2017
    • Best Books of 2016
    • Best Books of 2015
    • Best Books of 2014
    • Best Books of 2013
  • Fuse 8 n’ Kate
  • Videos
  • Press Release Fun

September 14, 2010 by Betsy Bird

Review of the Day: Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins and Other Nasties by Lesley M.M. Blume

September 14, 2010 by Betsy Bird   3 comments

Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins and Other Nasties: A Practical Guide by Miss Edythe McFate
As told to Lesley M.M. Blume

Illustrated by David Foote
Alfred A. Knopf (an imprint of Random House)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-375-86203-8
Ages 9-12
On shelves September 14th

The term “urban fantasy” gets bandied about a bit these days. If you’re unfamiliar with it, basically it just boils down to the idea of placing normally pastoral fairies in the big bad city. You get a lot of urban fantasies on the young adult and adult fiction side of things. Gritty streets + fluffy fairies = new genre. It’s strange to think that few have ever extended this idea to the younger ages. Urban fairy picture books are few and far between and chapter books? Even The Spiderwick Chronicles sets its modern day tales of fairies in the countryside rather than in the grimy urban streets. Lesley M.M. Blume aims to change all that. Her newest book delves deep into those aspects of New York City where folks might not expect to find the extraordinary (say, the Lincoln Tunnel) and give the grit some magic. Even the most countrified kid will find something to love about this truly metropolitan fare. It’s a doozy.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

When one strays into a foreign land, it is advisable to have a native guide on hand. But what do you take with you when the foreign land in question is your own backyard? For that, you will need to turn to an expert. And the expert in the case of city fairies and their kin is Miss Edythe McFate. With great relish, Miss McFate shares with the reader many helpful tips and tricks on dealing with fairies. And not just any fairies, mind, but the ones that have adapted to large city centers like the heart of New York City itself. In this book, a reader will encounter eight short cautionary tales (some more cautionary than others) and, between those chapters, practical advice regarding fairies and their day-to-day lives. Sometimes funny, sometimes dire, McFate/Blume weaves a new look at fairies in the city and leaves the reader wanting more. I’ve no doubt that a sequel cannot be far behind.

The book sets itself apart from the pack partly because it’s not afraid to be all things to all people. Do you like practical field guides to impossible critters that could not possibly exist? It is that. Or do you prefer short stories about fairies (“and other nasties”) and couldn’t care less about the practical survival techniques such a book might provide? It is that as well. Blume gives you the option of picking and choosing what it is you wish this book to accomplish. Visually, it does not resemble a field guide of any sort. No faux battered cover or mock leather clasp. Inside there aren’t individual boxes or cutaways. Really, just glancing at the chapters a person would be inclined to believe that this was just your average everyday middle grade chapter book. I was rather taken with the unexpected nature of the presentation. While the subtitle certainly does mention that this is “A Practical Guide by Miss Edythe McFate”, how many kids are ardent subtitle readers? This book will therefore come as a bit of a surprise to them. The question then becomes, a good surprise or a bad one?

I say good. Blume is tapping into a Roald Dahl punishment mindset with these tales. Only unlike Dahl, Blume isn’t going to moralize. The thing a person needs to know about fairies is that they don’t deal with justice. Good little children are as likely to suffer at the hands of the fair folk as bad little children. Right from the start you’re sort of given a hint of this with the tale “A Face Made from Flowers”. Though the first story in this book is about a good little girl who does a good little deed, this second tale is about a different good little girl who suffers a bad little fate because of her foolishness. I can see kids getting thrown by this. The story in question is about a plain girl born in a family where beauty is prized above all. Her only comfort comes when she hangs out with the fairies in her backyard in a fairy circle. Eventually, in her misery, she asks the fairies to make her beautiful. The result is not what she may have expected. I can see child readers finishing this story and thinking to themselves, “Wait . . . what? But she was a good kid and her sisters were bad! Why weren’t they turned into something?” For a few they’ll be seriously upset, but for most they’ll be all the more inclined to read the stories. Suddenly, they won’t be able to utterly trust in the author, a fact that makes the reading all the more exciting. When a bad kid can get away with something or a good kid can be punished unexpectedly at any moment, that sort of ratchets up the tension in any short story collection.

There are some inconsistencies in the book, alas, though they are few and far between. The premise is that our narrator, Ms. McFate, has interviewed these children or people these children have known and learned of their tales. Some stories, however, could not possibly have been gathered that way (I know that I’m getting weirdly technical on a children’s book here, but I like internal logic to work). For example, in the story of Daisy, the girl who was turned into a flower, the girl in question was the only one in that story capable of telling her tale. Then she’s daisyfied, rendering her mute. Indeed, the narrator goes so far as to even tell us what the girl’s final thoughts were, prior to becoming a blossom. This would work fine if the book had an omniscient narrator, but since the very name of the narrator is in the title, it feels as if the title is trying to have it both ways.

Illustrator David Foote makes for an interesting pairing with Ms. Blume. There are two ways any artist can go with a fairy book. Either you can become hugely precise and delicate or you can go wild and free. Mr. Foote’s work is clearly in the latter category. These are images that owe more to Ronald Searl and Ralph Steadman than Tony DiTerlizzi or Chris Riddell. The image that faces the title page, for example, shows a series of messy extensions bursting forth from the gutter of the book. Are they plant life or long hairy legs belonging to a creature of unspecified species? No idea. Yet they effectively set the tone. These strange mixes of vegetation and hairy fly legs creep and extend over a number of pages inside the book. As for the rest, Foote’s spot illustrations give the tales a comfortable feel. It was clever to make the story about the Algonquin brownies the first since Foote’s images of the brownies are charming. They’re like little Fiorello H. Laguardia’s in their little suits and sharp eyebrows. On the opposite side of the equation is his ugly mermaid, a gal with a face that could stop a clock. You bet. Foote is clearly the right man for this job.

I’ve seen plenty of middle grade fantasy set in New York in my day. Everything from Grand Central ghosts in The Night Tourist to Central Park dragons in Falcon’s Egg to living gargoyles in Stoneflight. I’ve seen the occasional fairy too, I suppose, but books like Delia Sherman’s Changeling couldn’t be more different in tone than Ms. Blume’s. After all, Ms. Blume’s is a practical guide above all. There’s also something about the tone of this book that makes you inclined to believe everything it says. I found myself almost wanting to take notes about placing coins on the floor to detect good and bad fairies and when it is appropriate to wear your clothes inside out. Ms. Blume has the ability to make you believe in the impossible. No small feat for a book of medium size. Fun and original.

On shelves now.

Source: Final copy sent from author for review.

Other Blog Reviews: Educating Alice

Videos:

Just one book trailer for this puppy, but it’s a nice one:

Filed under: Reviews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
2010 reviewsDavid Footefairiesfield guidesLesley M.M. Blumemiddle grade fantasymiddle grade fiction

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

March 2023

Review of the Day: Hands by Torrey Maldonado

by Betsy Bird

February 2023

Review of the Day: Afterward, Everything Was Different by Rafael Yockteng, ill. Jairo Buitrago

by Betsy Bird

February 2023

Review of the Day: Nearer My Freedom: The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano by Himself created by Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge

by Betsy Bird

February 2023

Review of the Day: The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri, ill. Daniel Miyares

by Betsy Bird

January 2023

Review of the Day: The Tree and the River by Aaron Becker

by Betsy Bird

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

2023 Caldecott Jump

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Creating a Collective Black Ancestry: Researcher Kimberly Annece Henderson Discusses Dear Yesteryear

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Recent Graphic Novel Deals, Early Mar 2023 | News

by Johanna

Heavy Medal

March suggestions: early Mock Newbery possibilities

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Book Review: Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave with illustrations by Tom de Freston

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Newbery Medalist Amina Luqman-Dawson visits The Yarn

by Colby Sharp

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

Best Chapter Books 2020 | SLJ Best Books

Best Picture Books 2020 | SLJ Best Books

Best Poetry 2021 | SLJ Best Books

Best Young Adult Books 2019 | SLJ Best Books

SLJ Book Reviews Editors’ Favorite Books Read in 2021

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Monica Edinger says

    September 14, 2010 at 8:42 am

    Wow. Synergy! I did a post on this one on Sunday and Jules wrote that she’s reading it to her girls.

    • Elizabeth Bird says

      September 14, 2010 at 11:14 am

      Sunday? How on earth did I miss that? To the linking!

Trackbacks

  1. Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast » Blog Archive » The Preeminent Fairy Expert Speaks Out says:
    September 15, 2010 at 6:05 am

    […] I see that Betsy Bird gave us one of her detailed write-ups of the book yesterday in her Review of the Day post, not to mention Monica Edinger covers it over at her “Refreshingly Nasty Fairies” […]

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

  • External Links

    • A Fuse #8 Production Reviews
  • Follow This Blog

    Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    Primary Sidebar

    • News & Features
    • Reviews+
    • Technology
    • School Libraries
    • Public Libraries
    • Age Level
    • Ideas
    • Blogs
    • Classroom
    • Diversity
    • People
    • Job Zone

    Reviews+

    • Book Lists
    • Best Books
    • Media
    • Reference
    • Series Made Simple
    • Tech
    • Review for SLJ
    • Review Submissions

    SLJ Blog Network

    • 100 Scope Notes
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Heavy Medal
    • Neverending Search
    • Teen Librarian Toolbox
    • The Classroom Bookshelf
    • The Yarn

    Resources

    • 2022 Youth Media Awards
    • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
    • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
    • Summer Reading 2021
    • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
    • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
    • Summer Programming Survey
    • Research
    • White Papers / Case Studies
    • School Librarian of the Year
    • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
    • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

    Events & PD

    • In-Person Events
    • Online Courses
    • Virtual Events
    • Webcasts
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Media Inquiries
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Content Submissions
    • Data Privacy
    • Terms of Use
    • Terms of Sale
    • FAQs
    • Diversity Policy
    • Careers at MSI


    COPYRIGHT © 2023


    COPYRIGHT © 2023