Nonfiction Spotlight: The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World (A True Story) by Mary Losure

Cover from Goodreads

Title: The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World (A True Story)

Author: Mary Losure

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Copyright date: 2012

Target Audience: Middle Grade

Lexile Reading Level: 940L

Awards Received: Booklist Editors’ Choice, Best Children’s Non-fiction 2012, Horn Book Fanfare 2012, Betsy Bird’s 100 Magnificent Children’s Books of 2012, Society of Midland Authors Award 2013, Best Children’s Non-Fiction, A Junior Library Guild selection

Summary:

When Frances was nine, her father went to fight in the First World War and she and her mother went to stay with her Uncle Arthur, Aunt Polly, and cousin Elsie in the house in Cottingley, Yorkshire, England. It was in the beck behind the Cottingley home that Frances first spotted the little green men all dressed in green she called fairies. When the adults in her life began to tease Frances about the fairy sightings, Elsie stepped in with a brilliant plan. The girls would photograph the fairies and prove the adults wrong! Never has a hoax worked so brilliantly. The Fairy Ring tells the story of Frances moving to Cottingley, meeting the fairies, and altering photographs with cardboard cutouts painted by Elsie that were clever enough to even fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of Sherlock Holmes!

"Frances with the Fairies" (Losure, 2012, p.37)

“An intriguing glimpse into a photo-doctoring scandal well before the advent of Photoshop.” - Publishers Weekly  

Critique of Contents & Organization:

This enchanting narrative nonfiction is told in limited third person. The events of the magical and mysterious Cottingley Fairy photographs unfold in chronological order, weaving aspects of the story directly from primary sources such as Frances’s own autobiography and the letters between Elsie’s mother and Mr. Gardner, the man who made Elsie and Frances famous. The whole narration has a very fairy tale-esque feel to it:

“One day when the air was very still, Frances was sitting in her willow tree when she noticed a leaf moving, all by itself. There was no breeze, yet the leaf seemed to be twirling anyway.  It was odd, but Frances didn’t give it much thought until another afternoon, when the same thing happened: one leaf began to twirl. All by itself. As she peered through the willow branches, Frances noticed a little man,” (Losure, 2012, p.19). 

There’s even a section about the end of the First World War, when Frances’s uncle refuses to let anyone go into town and enjoy the festivities (Losure, 2012, p.46), much in the same vein as an evil stepmother might.


The story is broken up into three parts (Frances’s Fairies, Elsie, Frances and Elsie) with several short chapters within each part. Each chapter is listed on the Table of Contents page.  There’s an Acknowledgements (p. 167) section, Source Notes (p. 169), Image Credits (p. 178), Bibliography (p. 179), and an Index (p. 181).


The writing style, organization and content really works well for this story. I loved the fact that there were so many photographs included through out the story. I only wish they had been in color like the ones you can find online—with that said, I also really appreciate that they’re photographs of the original photographs, which did not have color at the time.

Reasons to Include this Title in Your Library Collection:

In her Acknowledgments page Mary Losure states that “for a long time, I’ve been interested in true stories with children as their heroes” (p. 167).  I think its very important to encourage children to imagine themselves as the heroes and to explore the wonders and mysteries of this world that may or may not be real.


This book does a wonderful job of setting readers up for critical thinking. Much like an article from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Losure sets the facts before us but leaves the final verdict up to us, inspiring critical thinking in those who partake in her story. “It was true that Frances had lied about the first four photographs. But that didn’t mean the last one was a fake” (p.163) and “But surely, now, the audience can tell that what’s inside it is not a joke or a hoax. It’s a fairy story with big, strong, wings that can fly people’s imaginations to gorgeous and fairyland places” (p. 166).

Use & Extension Activities:

•           Have children take their own nature pictures—do they see anything that could resemble a fairy creature?
•           Have children research if there have been other fairy sightings outside of the ones mentioned in the book
•           Have older readers write a persuasive essay about whether fairies are real or imaginary using information they found in the book and outside sources.
•           Have children research modern day hoax pictures and discuss the idea of “Fake News”. 

Read Alikes:

Provided by Novelist Plus:

Title: Spooked! How a Radio Broadcast and the War of the Worlds Sparked the 1938 Invasion of America

Author: Gail Jarrow

Audience: Middle Grade

Reasoning: This narrative nonfiction covers the radio reading of "War of the Worlds", an unintentional hoax in 1938 that had America panicking about a fictional Martian invasion. 

Title: Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials

Author: Marc Aronson

Audience: YA

Reasoning: This narrative nonfiction looks at the events surrounding the Salem Witch Trials. It is told in the same mysterious unfolding of events that allows readers to determine what was truth, half-truth, and outright lies.