Skip to main content

Small Persons with Wings


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.)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Painting for Peace in Ferguson

Painting for Peace in Ferguson By Carol Swartout Klein Treehouse Publishing Group, 2015. Nonfiction. When the city of Ferguson was overrun with so much hate and despair that homes and businesses had to be boarded up to protect property, citizens of the community decided to bring a message of hope by painting the boarded windows. Klein’s rhyming text supports the photographs of the hundreds of artists and volunteers and their artwork as they bring the messages of peace, hope, love, and that by being united they can make a difference. A great book to show children how a community rallied to make a positive change and that even a small gesture can make a huge difference. A great discussion opener on how we should treat each other.

Dragon Run

Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews Scholastic, 2013.  336 pgs.  Fantasy      Al Pilgrommor is excited for Testing Day, when he will receive his rank, a tattooed number on the back of his neck, and a path forward to his future occupation and life.  He feels confident because his parents were fours on a scale of seven, but he is worried for his friend Wisp who doesn't have much of a chance of scoring above a two at best. But when Al is scored a zero, he not only has no prospects, he may lose his life as the dreaded Cullers are unleashed to kill him and his family to purify the land's bloodlines.  Al's world is ruled by dragons--the lords and supposed creators of humankind--so he thinks that even if he survives, he will have to make his living as a beggar or thief. But when Al sticks up for his Earther friend in front of Magister Ludi, he is drawn into the struggle of a secret organization hoping to destroy the Cullers, and perhaps the dragons them...

Review: Growing Home

Growing Home Written by Beth Ferry Illustrated by The Fan Brothers New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. Fiction. 261 pages. This book has some entertaining characters! We get to read about Toasty, the goldfish who loves to eat cheese puffs, Ivy, a plant with magical powers, and Arthur, the spider who ends up with a broken leg. Jillian is the main human character in the book. She loves Toasty and Ivy, and would probably love Arthur, too, but she doesn't know about him....yet. Her parents own an antique shop, but they are facing some economic hardship.  This charming story is about magic, teamwork, and friendship. I loved that there were all kinds of shenanigans happening. While we are on a journey where the fish, the plant, the spider, and the girl are working to solve one mystery after another, the author beautifully guides us to the realization that words are powerful, friendships can heal hearts, and books have their own magic power to help in all kinds ...