Penelope Larkspur/Leslie Elizabeth Watts (illus.)
Kids Can Press
ISBN: 1550745476
1999
Come fairies
take me out of this dull world,
for I would ride with you
upon the wind and dance
upon the mountains like a flame.
-W.B. Yeats.
The Secret Life of Fairies (1999), written by Penelope Larkspur and illustrated by Leslie Elizabeth Watts, is a charmingly rendered picture book about everything you never knew about fairies. With its meticulous look at fairy customs, attire, and even physiology, the book makes a suitable introduction to the world of fairies. Perhaps the biggest question left unanswered is that of their origins. It is shown that they don't have belly buttons; how are they born? If their beginnings are mysterious, the fairies' demise is not, as described in the last pages of the book. Still, alongside Brian Froud's Lady Cottington works, Larkspur and Watts's picture book belongs to the library of any fairy enthusiast.
The Secret Life of Fairies borrows from multiple forms and structures to realise a multi-faceted, entertaining look at the lives and environments of fairies. Not to use just prose narrative, Larkspur includes poetry, a short story fittingly called A Fairy Tale, and even a recipe for baking Fairy Cakes with Cream Icing. A Fairy Tale is unusual in that there is an evil stepfather instead of a stepmother, but there is, of course, a happy ending. Like a typical child's nature book, there are pictures of fairies in their habitats of sylvan woods, and short paragraphs on their rituals and eating habits. Watch out, because while "some fairies make their own fairy products, many prefer to steal from humans". How to deal with missing food or household items when fairy folk are to blame? There's more on etiquette in human-fairy relations in the six rules of Fairies and People, which is displayed on a scroll held aloft by fairies. (Rule number six: Never steal from fairies.)
Watts's soft, woodsy artwork articulates the fantasy and the wonder of fairies. The fairies themselves, with their complacent faces, and their cluttered homes, are drawn with a naive realism. The illustrations depict fairy life in vignettes and, particularly effective, cross-sections of rooms in a fairy home. No fairy castles nor Tinkerbell wands here, but rather humble homes under mounds of earth, and the useful things they make from the detritus of human objects. For instance, one fairy's quiver for arrows is fashioned from the finger of a glove; a misplaced woolen hat is recycled into a dozen fairy sweaters. However, leaves, flowers, and green-hued cloth constitute the fairies' usual dress.
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