The Racketty-Packetty House by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Do you like dolls and fairies?  This book is 100 years old and has just come out in a new version with beautiful, detailed illustrations.  The same author who wrote The Secret Garden and A Little Princess wrote this story of two dollhouses and the dolls who inhabit them.  The old, shabby doll  house (Racketty- Packetty House) is shoved in a corner when a beautiful new Tidy Castle arrives.  But the dolls who live in Racketty-Packetty House still dance and sing and have wonderful times;  that is, until they find out their house is going to be destroyed.  Lucky for the dolls there is a band of fairies in the house!  Read this wonderful old classic to find out how the fairies save the day.

Emily’s fairy house

Emily, a second grader in Mrs. Lee’s class and a real fairy lover, has been building fairy houses at her house. She recently took home Fairy Houses and Beyond by Tracy Kane, which gave her some inspiration. “All the boys thinks it’s a fairy trap, but it’s not,” said Emily.  “The number one rule is you can’t use bricks or paper, because the fairies don’t like it. You can’t use anything that people made. So I only use twine and tacky glue and pine cones, rocks, leaves, sticks… The house I’m making is a fall house.”  She put leaves on the branches.  She built a ladder so the fairies can get up to the platform.  Here is the fairy house “under construction” in her house:

And here is the house in its habitat, Emily’s front yard:

Notice the shells in the pathway.  The shells came from Bar Harbor, and were a gift from her grandparents:

And here is a closeup of the second floor loft:

Finally, here is a picture of the house with the book that helped Emily and her family create it:

Emily says that making the fairy house was a lot of work but it was also fun.  She is going to check today to see if any fairies have moved into the house.  When I go by on my daily walk, I will look, too!

New books added this week!

School will be starting in less than a month, and new books are arriving in the CPS Library. This week, the following books have been added

Many new fairy books in the Disney fairy series, as well as the Flower Fairies series. Here are a few titles:

Tink, North of Neverland / The great Fairy Race / Pixie Hollow Paint Day / Iridessa lost at Sea

A second grade student recently had a birthday party, and instead of presents, the girls brought money which was donated to the CPS Library to buy some new books! Thanks, girls, for being so generous! These are some of the books bought with this “birthday donation” :

Fairy Houses and Beyond by Barry and Tracy Kane

This unusual book is made up of fascinating and beautiful pictures of fairy houses and villages and stories about people’s experiences with building fairy houses. It will stimulate young readers’ creativity, imagination, and love of nature.

In the Realm of the Never Fairies by Monique Peterson

This guide book provides all the information readers could ever want about Tink, Prilla, Vidia and their fellow fairies. It is filled with fascinating facts about fairy lore, history, daily routines, hobbies and activities, clothing, eating habits, and more.

Daisy Dawson and the Secret Pool by Steve Voake

Daisy Dawson has an amazing gift – she can understand everything that animals say! One day, Daisy and her friends are on a woodland expedition to find and photograph some rather shy otters. But somewhere in the treetops, birds are singing songs about storms – will Daisy get her picture before the bad weather gets them?

Judy Moody goes to College by Megan McDonald

Judy is having trouble with math, so Judy’s parents decide to find her a tutor at the local college. Visiting her tutor on the college campus, Judy enters a new and amazing world and immediately begins to transform her life—and her friends’ lives—into a college student’s life.