Laura Amy Schlitz won the Newberry Medal for her book Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From a Medieval Village and I have to admit I never read it -- just a book that never seemed to beckon. Now that I’ve read her latest book for 7- to 12-year-old girls, I’m tempted to go back and visit Good Masters…!Did you know that fairies are born with a lot of the knowledge and skills they need to survive? And what they don’t know at birth, they learn very quickly? That’s because fairies do not make very good parents, so the baby fairies need to be self-reliant from day one.

Flory is a night fairy. She loves the moist air of a moonlit night and her eyes are made to see in the dark. But when she is just a few months old, a bat (believing she is a luna moth) swoops down and eats Flory’s wings. Flory decides she hates, hates, hates bats and resolves to become a day fairy. She finds an abandoned birdhouse to live in and coerces a squirrel into helping her get around the giant’s garden. Soon, she finds she is coping pretty well with her wingless life. But everything changes again once Flory decides she would prefer to ride on the back of a hummingbird instead of a squirrel.

This is a lovely story but a little scary for a younger reader to read on their own. Fortunately, I also think this would be a terrific story to read aloud! It also has one exquisite illustration in each chapter. ~Patti