Fairy Realm: The Flower Fairies

Author: Emily Rodda

In this second book in the FairyRealm series Jessie returns to the land of FairyRealm once more. This time she is asked to sort out the griffins who are supposed to guard the treasure house but have become overprotective and are now guarding everything. The explanation is that there is an overabundance of magic now in FairyRealm since the renewing of it by the Queen in the last book.
As they travel to the palace, Jessie is swarmed by some busy little flower fairies who want her to come and join them dancing, after they beg she soon agrees. Presently her mind wanders to her own problems. She and her mother have moved to “Blue Moon”, Granny’s house. Jessie feels is working hard to fit in at her new school but her next door neighbor, Irena, who is her age isn’t very friendly. To make it worse, after feeling pressured to be something, Jessie volunteered to be the butterfly in the school concert. She discovered soon after that Irena was the butterfly in the last school concert and is certain to be unhappy that Jessie will play the part this year. To top it off, the butterfly is required to dance gracefully to the music in front of everyone. Jessie believes she isn’t able to dance, at all, let alone gracefully.
When Jessie discovers that there are four griffins who are absolutely huge, immensely dangerous and only listen to the Queen she feels even less able help her friends. While at the palace the housekeeper suggests she borrow a pair of the Queen’s very valuable and treasured wings to dance with the flower fairies. After choosing a set that resemble the ones her Granny made for her mother that she is using in the school concert, she discovers that these magical wings can help you to fly and therefore be graceful and lighter than air.
In the middle of this, an idea comes to Jessie. If the wings are so very valuable then maybe they could trick the griffins into wanting to protect them instead of the other places. As expected, her plan works the guards (interesting note: the lead guard is female) move the wings to the treasure house and all four griffins guard them.
Jessie then asks permission to borrow the wings for her school concert that night. The housekeeper lets her borrow them, although they belong to the Queen who is currently halfway around the kingdom. Jessie can only have the wings in our world for one day or they will begin to spoil.
Trouble brews when the fairies accidentally let the griffins overhear that Jessie has a pair of the wings and cross into her world to get them back. As Jessie races around saving the fairies who came to tell her she runs out of time and barely makes it to her school concert. She performs beautifully (she believes it’s the magical wings) and only on the way home does she find out that her Granny (really an ex-fairy Queen we discover in book one) had sent the griffin home (with the borrowed wings) and Jessie’s mom had taken the homemade wings from the closet to complete her outfit.

Conclusion:
There is very little magic in this edition, magical wings that help you fly are about the extent of it. This story includes the negative element that Jessie and the housekeeper do not ask permission to borrow the wings even though she plans to return them. Other negative parts include: Irena calling Jessie “stupid” even though she doesn’t know Jessie is listening and Jessie sneaking into Irena’s house to save a trapped fairy. The very positive part to believe in yourself and do the best you can is proven much like the magic feather in the “Dumbo” movie. The moral of the story is all’s well that ends well, which leaves the door open wide to ask our children if that’s really the truth. Asking your child if it’s every okay to borrow something without permission from the owner should help put Jessie’s actions in the right light.

Buy the first three of these series on Amazon.com for $9.99.