Skip to main content

Small Persons with Wings

By

by Ellen Booraem
Dial, 2011. 304 pgs. Fiction


When Mellie Turpin is growing up, she keeps company with a Small Person with Wings, and when she gets to kindergarten she tells her class she will bring Fidius in for show-and-tell. When he finds out he gets very angry and disappears, leaving behind a chipped porcelain figure she winds up taking to school to the scorn of her classmates who call her Fairy Fat forever after. Mellie gives herself over to science, statistics, anything measurable and demonstrable to distance herself from fairy tales, but when she turns 13, her family inherits her grandfather's inn, they arrive to find it filled with fairies--oops, I mean, Parvi Parventi, or Small Persons with Wings. Tart-tongued and suspicious, Mellie tries hard to alienate her next door neighbor Timmo, a relentlessly friendly boy who comes across the "fairies" by accident, but he sticks with her through thick and thin which includes adventures as an amphibian, a truly frightening real estate agent, and a randomly bonging "grandfather" clock. All can be made right if Mellie and Timmo can find the moonstone and return it to the Small Persons at exactly midnight of the full moon, but certain factions are resistant and the exchange comes right down to the wire. . . . Small Persons with Wings is a big ball of laughs, and the characters are believable and appealing, or not. Mellie is a chunky girl who has always been mocked and abused, but her mother keeps telling her she will "grow into her grandeur" and in this story, she certainly does.(The tone and vocabulary of this book, as well as a few brief vulgar references by Mellie's tormentors, make this story best-suited for sixth graders and up.)

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Display: Golden

By
The Bakery Dragon By Devin Elle Kurtz New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024. Picture book. Ember, a small dragon with an unimpressive roar, fears he will never be as good at stealing gold as other dragons, but discovers a different path to joy after a chance encounter with a baker.--Editor Sona and the Golden Beasts By Raani LaRocca New York: Quill Tree Books, 2024. Fiction. 385 pgs. Discovering an orphaned wolf pup she believes is related to the five sacred beasts of Devia, which a Hunter has been killing one by one, Sona embarks on an epic adventure during which she realizes that the fate of the sacred beasts, and the future of Devia, is in her hands. --Publisher Gold and Silver, Silver and Gold By Alvin Schwartz New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Informational. 128 pgs. Presents legends, true stories, and tall tales about the hunting, finding, and losing of treasure, including pirate treasure and treasure not yet uncovered.--Editor Golden Girl By Reem Faruqi New York: Harper, 202...
Post a Comment
Read more

From Story Time: The Letter "F"

By
Preschool Time Frank and Bert By Chris Naylor-Ballesteros Lincoln, MA: Nosy Crow, 2023. Picture Book. This laugh-out-loud picture book follows best friends Frank and Bert as they play hide-and-seek, but when Bert isn't so good at hiding (despite thinking he is), Frank must decide between winning or making Bert happy. --Editor Preschool Time All at Once Upon a Time Written by Mara Rockliff Illustrated by Gladys Jose New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2024. Picture Book. Fairy Tale land experiences a topsy-turvy transformation where classic stories become mixed up and makes Prince Charming climb a beanstalk, Cinderella kiss a frog, and Rapunzel's nose grow every time she tells a lie. --Editor Toddler Time Sometimes I Am Furious Written by Timothy Knapman Illustrated by Joe Berger New York: Penguin Workshop, 2023. Picture Book In rhyming text, a small girl admits she sometimes gets angry when she is frustrated, and her grandmother shows her how to cope. --Editor Book Babie...
Post a Comment
Read more