Book Review: The Fairy Circus
Aug. 21st, 2025 07:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI saved Dorothy P. Lathrop’s The Fairy Circus for the final book in the Newbery project because I had a suspicion that it would be a high note to go out on, and I was 100% correct.
At the beginning of the book, the fairies witness a human circus when it sets up on their field. Enchanted, the fairies decide that they simply MUST have a circus of their own, and the rest of the book is about how the fairies through a circus with the help of the woodland creatures.
The spiders spin a trapeze and a tightrope! The chipmunks are the tigers, but they keep forgetting to be properly fierce! The squirrels are the lions (carefully bunching their squirrels around their heads for manes) and they are SO fierce that they spring on the lion tamer, who flies away just in time! Thrillingly terrified, the fairies “went flitting over the arena looking for anything a little less exciting than lions. They even sat down at the farther end of the arena and let themselves be amused by the clowns! They had been as scared as all that!”
The fairy queen shows up, and the fairies have a grand parade in her honor, with tortoises as elephants and mice as horses. And the whole circus is illuminated by fireflies. And… and… and…
An enchanting book. Perfect for fans of Borrowers-type stories about tiny people (in this case tiny people with wings!) making use of the materials at hand to make their own tiny world.
At the beginning of the book, the fairies witness a human circus when it sets up on their field. Enchanted, the fairies decide that they simply MUST have a circus of their own, and the rest of the book is about how the fairies through a circus with the help of the woodland creatures.
The spiders spin a trapeze and a tightrope! The chipmunks are the tigers, but they keep forgetting to be properly fierce! The squirrels are the lions (carefully bunching their squirrels around their heads for manes) and they are SO fierce that they spring on the lion tamer, who flies away just in time! Thrillingly terrified, the fairies “went flitting over the arena looking for anything a little less exciting than lions. They even sat down at the farther end of the arena and let themselves be amused by the clowns! They had been as scared as all that!”
The fairy queen shows up, and the fairies have a grand parade in her honor, with tortoises as elephants and mice as horses. And the whole circus is illuminated by fireflies. And… and… and…
An enchanting book. Perfect for fans of Borrowers-type stories about tiny people (in this case tiny people with wings!) making use of the materials at hand to make their own tiny world.
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Date: 2025-08-21 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-22 05:23 pm (UTC)