Author: Sarah Tanzmann
Date: 2020
Quote: "[B]eing a faerie in the mortal world meant you got into trouble a lot."
In this short story young Aoife is in trouble for having used her magic powers to compel a friend to overeat. What she learns is how faeries clean up the messes they've made in relationships with humans: they use their powers to make their friends forget what they did.
Yes, a lot of people who seek inspiration for fiction in old faery lore decide they don't like the faeries.(Spelling the word "fairy" often connotes the twentieth century uses of the word, where the inhuman people of magic are small, cute, and mostly harmless, fond of teaching people lessons by offering them wishes and misinterpreting the words. Spelling it "faery" connotes older uses where, although James Baillie in the seventeenth century declared that their average height was eighteen inches, many tribes of faeries were taller than humans, and more dangerous.)
This particular story is about a middle grades student, suitable for a middle grades audience. Other stories in this series deal with older characters and more adult interests, so adults might want to read the rest of the series before handing this book to a ten-year-old.
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