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Where are the fairies?
Where can we find them?
We've seen the fairy rings,
They leave behind them!
When they have danced all night,
Where do they go?
Lark, in the sky above,
Sat, do you know?
Is it a secret
No one is telling?
Why, in your garden
Surely they're dwelling!
No need for journeying,
Seeking afar:
Where there are flowers,
There fairies are.
However, if looking around your garden seems like too much trouble, you can find a wonderful selection of them in this book.
There were originally seven books in the flower fairy series, but in 1982 the publishers decided to publish an eighth, Flower fairies of the winter, so that there would be one for each season. As well as being available in this compilation edition, they are all still available as separate books.
The seven books included in this wonderful and captivating book are: flower fairies of the Spring, Flower fairies of the summer, Flower fairies of the Autumn, Flower fairies of the Winter, of the Trees, the Garden, the Wayside, and A flower fairy alphabet.
For anyone unfamiliar with flower fairy books, they are the collected work of an artist and poet, Cicely Mary Barker, who was born in Croydon in 1895.She, had epilepsy as a child and was frail and delicate for most of her life. As a result of this she was unable to attend school regularly, and taught herself at home to draw, write and paint.
She had a great love of children, due to the fact that her sister Dorothy ran a nursery to raise money for the family, and it is believed her love of children, combined with an active imagination and a keen interest in gardening, inspired her to write the flower fairy series.
She was also very close to her mother, and it was for her that flower fairies of the spring was dedicated, with the earliest editions containing this poem she wrote for her mother.
To mother
This tiny cup of first fruit wine,
I call it mine,
But it is yours
But why? Because you are the vine,
And I am yours and this is mine
Other influences on Cicely may have been the huge Victorian passion for fairies that she grew up surrounded by, especially J.M Barrie's Peter Pan, a book Cicely loved that was published at the turn of the century.
So, onto the fairies themselves. Fairies are shy secretive creatures, on average 5-10 cm tall, resembling playful children, some cherubic, some mischievous, with little pointy ears and elfin features. They like to hide, and are not easy to see, even when you look for them. Maybe if you're lucky, you'll catch a glimpse out of the corner of you eye.
The book as I've already said is divided into the eight separate works by CMB. The books contain flowers that grow in that season (or place) with a poem and a fairy for each.
The poems are beautifully and simply written, and very enchanting. Some are only a few lines long, some a few verses, but none are more than five verses.
Each book starts with a small introduction, such as the poem at the very beginning of this review, which is taken from 'flower fairies of the garden' before going on to list the fairies.
Illustrations are simple yet glorious. It's easy to see that Cicely had a great love of children, and she paints them as fairies gorgeously, each holding a bloom from the flower they represent. The flowers are observed with astounding botanical accuracy (so much so that I can now name many more plants than I could before) and the fairies themselves capture the grace and innocence of young children, (many based on the kids she used to sketch at her sisters nursery), with wonderful costumes and colours, some simple, and some extravagant. The fairies are of mixed sex, which I like, as I'd hate to think that all fairies were women (we all need some of the cheekiness of young boys) and have many different colourings. Although I've seen no ethnic or mixed race fairies (these were published in the twenties, a time when racism was still very prevalent in this country) there are a few dressed in clothes that manage to capture the exoticism of far-off lands.
Also worth noting is that the
author also includes uses, alternative names, and favoured growing conditions for a lot of the plant, and when the name has no obvious origin, try's to explain it. An example of this is Black Bryony (flower fairies of the autumn) where she puts under the verse 'There is nothing black to be seen about this Bryony, but people do say it has a black root, and this may be true, but you would have to dig it up to find out. It used to be thought a cure for freckles.'
At the back of the book there is an index, so you can look up a favourite plant in no time, and there are almost 200 different plants to choose from.
The cover of the book-The one I purchased had a cream dust jacket, with the
title embossed in gold, and in the centre, surrounded by an outlined border, a picture of the Columbine fairy, who appears to be about to curtsey, and looks very coy. On either side of this bordered picture, there are flowers and other fairies.
If you remove the dust jacket, the hard cover beneath is yellowy cream, again with the title embossed in gold, but with very little other decoration.
There is so much I could say about this book, but in the interests of trying to keep this op as concise as possible (very hard when you love a book as much as I love this one) I'll try to curtail my ramblings.
Would I recommend this? You haven't guessed already? I really truly LOVE this book. Why? Because its beautifully illustrated and written, is educational, but mainly because it take me back to a time in my past when I was innocent and imaginative, when I used to leave food out in the garden for fairies to eat (I did!) and when I used to believe that fairies favourite food was liquorice (sadly, this book does not enlighten me as to whether or not this is true.) and that the fairies were sucked up by an evil man with a hoover (again, no confirmation!)
A great book, and I would recommend this as a gift to anyone who likes Fairies,
poetry, flowers, art of Gardening, as well as an excellent children’s book to read to a daughter. It really will appeal to a wide range of people and a book that's still in print 81 years after it's first publishing has to be good.
The version I had was published by:
The Penguin Group,
Penguin Books Ltd,
80 Strand,
London,
WC2R 0RL.
Recommended retail
price is £19.99, but I got mine for £14.99 from past times, so do shop around.
ISBN 0 7232 4839 7
Final thought...BUY THIS BOOK!
Thanks for reading.
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