Part I: Bibliographic information
Type: Nonfiction/Historical
Title: The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World
Writer: Mary Losure
Copyright Date: 2012
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 9780-7636-5670-6
Genre/subgenre: Young Adult/Nonfiction -- History
Interest Age: 11+
Reading Level: Upper Grades (UG 9-12)
Pages: 184
Awards: Booklist Editors’ Choice for Best Youth Non-Fiction, 2012
Part I: Reader’s Annotation, Plot Summary, Critical Evaluation
Reader’s Annotation -- A true story about two girls from the small English village of Cottingley who gain national attention when their tales and photos of fairies from a nearbye waterway become widely published. Fairy experts -- including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- and reporters will not relent in their efforts to contact the young women as they wish to hear and perhaps debunk their eye-witness account of the Cottingley fairies.
Plot Summary --
The story begins as a family living in South Africa return to England so the father can serve against the Germans in World War I. They have a single child, Frances, who is just 10-year-old at the time. The mother and daughter moves in with in-laws in a smallish house in a Yorkshire Village while the father goes off to serve in the war. The couple is the child’s aunt and uncle, and they also have a daughter, Elsie, who is 15. The two girls share a room as the home is small. Elsie, a bright girl, attends a nearby private school while her cousin Frances, who struggled in school, has dropped out and works in a shop. Frances is very talented with drawing and painting and seeks work as an artist though mostly its coloring photos or making cards. The two spend summer on a creek -- or ‘beck’ as it’s call regionally -- behind the home where they play and talk by the waterfall.
In time, Frances apparently sees a fairy at the beck. The fairy is described as a 16-inch tall man in green. Later she sees others that have wings and are more like traditional fairies. The tell the family only to be made fun of. The older girl, Elsie, has in mind to take a photo to quiet them using her father’s new camera. It uses expensive glass plates but the father agrees to let them use it. They return to the bog and snap a single photo. The photo comes out and the adults don’t know what to make of it. Later one of the photo fall into the hands of a certain Mr. Gardiner, who is writing a book about fairies and seeking evidence. He contacts the family -- and Elsie, who is not inclined to continue the prank further -- and insist on more photos. The girls produce several other photos, and this only encourages Gardiner -- who is working a major publication that makes their story into national news.
The girls grow older and both marry. They are still bothered by reporters from as far off as America. Elsie and her husband go to India and live adventurous lives in distant lands -- returning many years later. They have single child. Frances has two children, and she hardly tells them anything about the fairies but they do find out. But their secret that they keep throughout the years is not easy to live with and time does not let it fade. They maintain the story of Frances sightings is true though their desire to put their naysayers in their place lead to some blending of the lines of truth and fiction.
Critical Evaluation -- Written in three parts, this short novel tells the delightful tale of two bright girls who pull of a spectacular hoax almost unwittingly. The first section tells of a gifted young girl whose father is at war -- Frances is the one who actually claims to have seen the fairies. Her 15-year-old cousin Elsie has left school for lack of interest but has a keen eye for drawing and painting and is also charming and cheerful by nature. When no one believes that Frances has seen the fairies, Elsie decides to come up with evidence in the form of photos they take together. The girls are tested as the pressure to confess their supposed hoax increases but they remain true to each other and their fairy story.
The Fairy Ring is a charming tale of friendship and loyalty in the face of a difficult world that offers them little in the way of confidence in their worth. Their story becomes something that proves that they are not only smart and capable but even are able to captivate the world. However, it spirals out of control as the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and others come to investigate and document their claim. And, their integrity is questioned in not so kind words. This work reads like a novel but it’s based in research of an NPR reporter, Mary Losure, who finds the charm of the story as retold by others, including Doyle’s rendition. She retells it so that all ages might enjoy the humor and quirkiness of Frances and Elsie’s lifelong adventure stemming from what began as two charmed girls entertaining themselves in the woods.
Part III: Author Info
Mary Losure maintains a website and describes herself there as follows: “Mary Losure began her wandering career path backpacking in the mountains of California and Oregon and kayaking in the Prince William Sound in Alaska. She’s worked as a field botanist’s assistant, family farmer, and staff reporter for Minnesota Public Public Radio. A long-time contributor to National Public Radio, she co-founded the independent production company Round Earth Media (Losure, n.d.).
She has authored two books -- both are nonfiction works for youth: The Fairy Ring (2012) and Wild Boy (2013).
Part IV: Curriculum Ties, Diversity, Booktalk Ideas, Challenge Issues
Curriculum Ties, if any -- This story is set in World War I England with WW I as the background. It could be taught in a history course. Also, the work delves into the human psyche and what it means to believe and how critical thinking can be fooled given artful persuasion.
Diversity of Cultures -- n/a
Booktalking Ideas -- This tale of Frances and Elsie’s has survived the test of time through various reports on the matter over time. How would a researcher go about finding the real story behind the story on an obscure event that occurred nearly one hundred years ago?
Challenge Issues -- n/a
Part V: Reasons chosen
This short work of nonfiction intrigue me when it came into our collection this winter. Fairies have a sort of timeless appeal, it seems. The introduction explains that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became intrigued as well due to his father’s mental illness, which involved some hallucinations. Upon hearing the rumors about the fairies at Cottingley, he apparently was inclined to believe the tales of gnomes and fairy rings. This is very intriguing to think a man of world-wide fame at the time for his Sherlock Holmes’ works would fall for the prank of two young country girls. This book is quite innocent short of the girl’s playful secret that is now immortalized. That’s part of the books charm -- it’s short and sweet. It was awarded the youth nonfiction award by Booklist in 2012 -- a well-deserved nod to a highly readable, not very lengthy work of creative non-fiction.
Part VI: Citations
Losure, M. (n.d.). Mary Losure: Bio. Retrieved from http://www.marylosure.com/mary-losure-author-bio/
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