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From: Katie Day <day.katie>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 06:41:45 +0800
At my last school, a small British-curriculum international school in Thailand, the beginning "chapter book" series which the girls in the equivalent of 1st to 3rd grade were absolutely crazy about was the Rainbow Magic Fairy series by Daisy Meadows (UK) (though I suspect that Daisy Meadows is one of those generic author names, like Carolyn Keene was).
See the website devoted to them: http://www.rainbowmagic.co.uk/ .
Though only the first 7 titles seem to be readily available (having checked Barnes & Noble online and Amazon.com <http://Amazon.com>) in the U.S. at the moment, I'm pleased to see the Mid-Continent Public Library's list of juvenile series has the whole list: http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/readers/series/juv/author.cfm?id=2596
The first set of 7 titles features colors: "Ruby the Red Fairy", "Amber the Orange Fairy", Sunny the Yellow Fairy", etc. Another set of 7 features weather: "Abigail the Breeze Fairy", "Crystal the Snow Fairy", "Wendy the Wind Fairy", etc.
Even after they'd read them all, groups of girls would come in to the library, take whatever books were still on the library shelves, and go to a table and lay them out in order to discuss the different fairies, their favorites and why, make up new fairies, and then draw pictures and create their own books, etc. Talk about getting the most imaginative value out of a series... these girls were obsessed with them. When new ones came in, the sign-up lists were very long. I know they're very popular in the UK -- and a search via Google even showed that they're translated into Italian now.
For the same age group -- but very popular with both boys and girls and a bit simpler (or, rather, more illustrations throughout) -- were the"Seriously Silly Stories" series, funny take-offs on the familiar fairy tales, written by Laurence Anholt and illustrated by Arthur Robins: "Ghostyshocks and the Three Scares",
"Shampoozel", "Snow White and the Seven Aliens", "Rumply Crumply Sticky Pin", etc. (I've always enjoyed fractured fairy tales myself -- ever since the days of Rocky & Bullwinkle...)
Again, see the MCPL listing: http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/readers/series/juv/author.cfm?id=2220 .
-- Katie
============== Katie Day day.katie at gmail.com katie.appleton.day at gmail.com Singapore
Received on Tue 22 Nov 2005 04:41:45 PM CST
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 06:41:45 +0800
At my last school, a small British-curriculum international school in Thailand, the beginning "chapter book" series which the girls in the equivalent of 1st to 3rd grade were absolutely crazy about was the Rainbow Magic Fairy series by Daisy Meadows (UK) (though I suspect that Daisy Meadows is one of those generic author names, like Carolyn Keene was).
See the website devoted to them: http://www.rainbowmagic.co.uk/ .
Though only the first 7 titles seem to be readily available (having checked Barnes & Noble online and Amazon.com <http://Amazon.com>) in the U.S. at the moment, I'm pleased to see the Mid-Continent Public Library's list of juvenile series has the whole list: http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/readers/series/juv/author.cfm?id=2596
The first set of 7 titles features colors: "Ruby the Red Fairy", "Amber the Orange Fairy", Sunny the Yellow Fairy", etc. Another set of 7 features weather: "Abigail the Breeze Fairy", "Crystal the Snow Fairy", "Wendy the Wind Fairy", etc.
Even after they'd read them all, groups of girls would come in to the library, take whatever books were still on the library shelves, and go to a table and lay them out in order to discuss the different fairies, their favorites and why, make up new fairies, and then draw pictures and create their own books, etc. Talk about getting the most imaginative value out of a series... these girls were obsessed with them. When new ones came in, the sign-up lists were very long. I know they're very popular in the UK -- and a search via Google even showed that they're translated into Italian now.
For the same age group -- but very popular with both boys and girls and a bit simpler (or, rather, more illustrations throughout) -- were the"Seriously Silly Stories" series, funny take-offs on the familiar fairy tales, written by Laurence Anholt and illustrated by Arthur Robins: "Ghostyshocks and the Three Scares",
"Shampoozel", "Snow White and the Seven Aliens", "Rumply Crumply Sticky Pin", etc. (I've always enjoyed fractured fairy tales myself -- ever since the days of Rocky & Bullwinkle...)
Again, see the MCPL listing: http://www.mcpl.lib.mo.us/readers/series/juv/author.cfm?id=2220 .
-- Katie
============== Katie Day day.katie at gmail.com katie.appleton.day at gmail.com Singapore
Received on Tue 22 Nov 2005 04:41:45 PM CST
