From: Beth Martin <BMartin>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 08:45:23 -0600

My middle school 6th and 7th graders really enjoy The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi even though much younger children would be able to read them. The illustrations by Holly Black are gorgeous and the design of the book makes it something kids want to pick up. The first book is called The Field Guide and it starts the series by telling of three siblings who move to an old house with their mother and discover a book that helps explain some of the strange things that have happening. The book is a field guide with lots of information about fairies and other strange creatures that live in the house on on the grounds of the Spiderwick Estate. I believe that there are five books in the series so far. I can't keep them on the shelf long enough to read them myself.

Beth Martin Teacher Librarian DC Everest Middle School IMC bmartin at dce.k12.wi.us 715-241-9700 ex.2320

>>> Katie Day <day.katie at gmail.com> 11/22/2005 4:41 PM >>>
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
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Received on Wed 23 Nov 2005 08:45:23 AM CST