The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World by Mary Losure (J NF)

The Fairy Ring

The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World

Mary Losure (Juvenile Non-Fiction)

Elsie loved a good laugh, she loved to paint, and she didn’t like being teased.  Needless to say, when her young cousin, Frances, was being mocked by her family after she told them that she had seen fairies down by the stream, well it was enough to make Elsie’s blood boil.  But when they had the audacity to begin teasing HER, that simply was the last straw!  Elsie thought up a clever plan to show the adults that fairies were in fact real and she would do so by offering up photographic evidence.  Little did Elsie know at the time that her fairy photos would someday attract the attention of someone who really did believe in spirits and fairies.  Someone who her own father admired and adored.  Someone by the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Author Mary Losure said that her idea for The Fairy Ring came after a visit to an independent bookstore in Minnesota.  There she came across The Coming of Fairies by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—a book built around the photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths and the implications behind their much-believed authenticity.  Frances wrote her own book, Reflections on the Cottingley Fairies, a memoir that was completed by her daughter, Christine Lynch, after her death.  Looking at the original photos now, people would obviously see them as the forgeries they were.  But back in 1917, a time when the news cycle was dominated by the First World War, the demand for legitimacy may not have been on the forefront of anyone’s mind.

It is remarkable how two girls—ages 15 and 9—were able to pull off what would later be known as one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century.  What is even more astonishing was their ability to wholeheartedly ensnare one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  How could one of the greatest authors of his time, and a medical doctor to boot, have been so gullible?  Doyle was a scientific man, but he was also spiritual and the death of his son, Kinglsey, in 1918 caused him to fully embrace spiritualism and the idea of spirits and otherworldly beings.  With that in mind, it’s no wonder why in mid-1919, when the Cottingley fairy photos were made public, that Doyle was quick to embrace the idea that fairies were indeed real, thus bringing some semblance of validation and comfort to a still grieving father.

Elsie and Frances’s story is as fascinating as it is unbelievable.  Remarkably, both women kept their secret long enough so that many reputations, including that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, were kept intact and untarnished.  It was a hoax that would transcend all others and spawned simply because one talented and easily offended teenager simply didn’t like being teased.  While Elsie eventually admitted to revealing the truth, Frances—even up to her death—never wavered from her belief in fairies.  Even Sherlock Holmes may have been inclined to believe in the Cottingley fairies for he once said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”  Are fairies impossible?  I, for one, would like to believe that fairies exist, for in the grand scheme of things, what harm would there be really to believe otherwise?

Rating: 5/5

*Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

It’s Throwback Thursday and we’re reviewing one of literature’s classics!  During the month of December, we’re reviewing books that celebrate the season.  Enjoy!

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol    

Charles Dickens (Adult Fiction)

How does one go about describing Ebenezer Scrooge?  Perhaps our story’s narrator says it best: “Oh!  But he was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge!  a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!  Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire, secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.  The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.”  Yes.  That will do nicely.  But no matter how vile Scrooge is, he has an equal by the name of Jacob Marley, his business partner that’s been dead seven years to the day.  This very night, Marley will pay a spectral visit to Scrooge in hopes of salvaging his former colleague’s soul and thus sparing him from an afterlife laden with rusty chains and regret.

A Christmas Carol is Dickens’ beloved and cherished Christmas song to the world.  First published in 1843, this classic story is divided into staves (or staffs) rather than chapters where every character is a note, every ghostly visit is a movement, and every revelation is a crescendo that builds to the climax when Scrooge realizes the dire consequences of his avarice and malevolence.

There are more than two dozen film adaptations of A Christmas Carol, but nothing quite compares to reading and absorbing Dickens’ original words, which contain a few subtleties that are otherwise lost when presented visually.  One example is that prior to Marley’s visit, the characters of Bob Cratchit and Fred are nameless and simply given titles such “clerk in the tank” or “Scrooge’s nephew”.  This omission would lead the reader to conclude that these characters are inconsequential; however, it is only later in the book when we realize what an important part these individuals will eventually play in Ebenezer Scrooge’s road to redemption.

I love the many moral and spiritual lessons we can glean from A Christmas Carol: “In order to fully realize life, one must love and be loved in return”; “Learning begins with listening”; “It’s important to learn from the mistakes of others”; or, if you’re a businessowner, “Treat your employees nicely”.  My personal favorite is taken from Marley’s visit with Scrooge where the former says, “I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.”  In an uncertain world where, despite careful planning or our best intentions, life doesn’t always go the way we wish, and it is therefore important to remember that if there is a chance—no matter how slight or remote—then there is still hope.

Rating: 5/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.scholastic.com