Rainbow Magic

My friend Rosemary and I recently started a babysitting exchange, in the hopes that each of us will have a chance to get out with our hubbies on a regular basis. One night in February, when it was Rosemary's turn to mind our girls, she arrived armed with some fairy books and introduced the girls to the world of Rainbow Magic written by Daisy Meadows. Ashley and Caitlin were enchanted by Crystal the Snow Fairy. So I do what I always do when we come across books they like: I searched Wikipedia for available information about the books and any other titles, then Amazon to see what the reviews are like and finally I checked the library to see if I could order them. I was almost overwhelmed to discover that, as well as nearly a dozen stand alone individual titles, there are currently 10 series of these Rainbow Magic fairy books, each with 7 books in the series. At the moment the library has 3 of the series with 2 more on order.

The Rainbow Fairies
The Weather Fairies
The Jewel Fairies
The Pet Keeper Fairies
The Fun Day Fairies

I have reserved them all, including the few individual titles that are available from the library at the moment. I imagine (hope?) the library will eventually have them all. So far we have read all the books in The Rainbow Fairies series and The Weather Fairies series. Today we received several of the books in The Jewel series so no doubt we will start this one tomorrow. Ashley and Caitlin love that there are two little girls, like themselves, helping out the fairies from Fairyland whenever Jack Frost and his Goblins cause problems that spill into the human world.

I continue to be impressed with Caitlin's stamina and desire to read chapter books. As with The Magic Tree House series, she loves to page through the books first to look at the illustrations and get the gist of the story before we read it. Then, while we're reading it, she might stop me to thumb forward again a few pages to inspect the pictures. She and Ashley have had to negotiate this "reading ahead" that Caitlin engages in. While Caitlin likes to know what's coming up, Ashley doesn't want Caitlin throwing in snippets of what's about to happen. Caitlin is learning to keep the information to herself, but will smile gleefully and utter comments like, "There's a good bit coming up", or "I know what's going to happen". This, Ashley will not only tolerate, but every now and then she too will peek at a picture so she can share Caitlin's excitement. It really is so much fun to read to them.

Image Credits: Scholastic and Orchard Books

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