Sunday, January 9, 2011

Fairies and the Quest for Never Land by Gail Carson Levine


In "Fairies and the Quest for Never Land" we get to revisit Never Land and our fairy friends that Levine has introduced to us in "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg" and "Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand." This is also her most recent book.

In "Fairies" we meet Gwendolyn. She is the great-granddaughter of the original Wendy, and she longs to meet both Peter, and the fairies of Never Land. Her family has kept the original house in the family, and every so often Peter has come back to collect one of the girls in the family to come back and clean for and mother the Lost Boys. While the girls recognize that times are more progressive now, and the boys really could clean for themselves, they love the few visits they each get to the island, so they never complain.

Gwendolyn is different in that she is the only one who's ever shown such a fascination in the fairies of Never Land. She makes her mother tell the tales that have been handed down over and over, and focuses on the fairies. The illustrations in the book show she's also drawn pictures of them to put on her walls.

Her fascination is fueled when the "kiss" that Peter gave Wendy is handed down to her, and she begins to have dreams/visions of Neverland. The dreams/visions jump all over the place and often show different things, but she's able to piece together a lot about life on Neverland, and for the fairies in particular, from them. Because of this her ache for Peter to come and collect her grows stronger and stronger.

Then, one day, Peter finally comes, and all her dreams come true! She even gets to meet the fairies. Then she meets Mother Dove, receives a stern warning to "Beware," and has a dream/vision that show's her that the great dragon Kyto is being freed. She does everything she can to help the fairies first prepare and then fight, but sometimes in her great worry she forgets to "Beware" and causes more trouble than help. It's a sweet and heartwarming story, and I'll let you read it to find out how the final battle turns out!

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