To wish that the creator of the Rainbow Fairies books had never been born?

[FalafelAtYourFeet]

I really, really, loathe these trash books. Every bloody story the same asinine crap...
If I never hear about Kirsty and Rachel again it will be too soon.

And the thing that frustrates me the most?

There are so many of them.
Every time we go to the Library DD chooses approximately ten to fifteen of these books, and there appears to be no sign of them running out, in fact DD informs me that there are new ones being written all the time!



I know it is just a phase and she won't still be reading these books when she is twenty but WHY WHY WHY won't she get something different for a change? (and I know the answer to that too, seven year old girls, stubborn, yadda yadda yadda).

AIBU. But I don't care. I hate them almost as much as I hate Enid Blyton. Which I drove my own mother insane with as a child .

I am glad she enjoys reading but I just wish she had never been introduced to these. Cautionary tale: Avoid Rainbow Fairies!

[flossie64]

I too hate them. I stopped DD getting them from the library or buying them, only to find that when she moved up to the junior reading section at school ,they have them there too. Bloody hell there's no escape.

[FalafelAtYourFeet]

I cannot believe that Phillip Pullman could be responsible for any of this trite nonsense.

[TheFoosa]

They are rubbish, but they are not supposed to be read to your child. They read them themselves because they are simple in terms of writing and comprehension.

imo, of course.

[TheFoosa]

I see them as practice books

The repetition is good for developing their reading skills, aren't they?

[TheFoosa]

ok that last post made no grammatical sense whatsoever

but I know what i mean

[nickelbabe]

i was planning not to stock them when i opened my shop, but people asked for them!
i'm a corporate machine.

still, i try to wean people off them:
try the Holly Webb animal stories Ginger the stray kitten, lost in the snow etc.
and you can get a series called Naughty Fairies by Lucy Mayflower (another team job) and Nina, Fairy Ballerina by Anna Wilson (real person): they're quite good.
Felicity Wishes sotry books (eg Starlight Songs 9780340917497) and a great series called Little Horrors by "Tiffany Mandrake". fabulous: the first one is Flax the Feral Fairy (9781921272707)

[FalafelAtYourFeet]

You are kidding? Really, Flax the Feral Fairy? Was that written as a backlash?

[houseworkhater]

I had no idea that they were written by a "team" I just thought that Daisy Meadows must do nothing else except write all day long!
Btw is Daisy Meadows a real person?
My dd loves them. They annoy me as they always start the same way,explaining who Rachel and Kirsty are, as if we don't already know!!!!

Op YANBU.

[TottWriter]

Wow, suddenly I'm so glad I have a DS! I vaguely notice the large sparkly section of that age group in the children's section, but as DS is 2 next month, so far I'm able to skim past and get to the meatier stuff in 9-12 (which I still love, though I call it 'research' because I'm writing some).

I'm not looking forward to DS finding a male equivalent of that nonsense though. YANBU, there are so many other, better books out there, for any age group. When I was growing up the fad was The Babysitter Club, and an inevitable series about girls who loved horses. Once my Enid Blyton phase was over I moved straight onto Robin Jarvis and the Brian Jacques' Redwall series.. Never looked back.

Have you tried gently steering her to Joan Aiken's Wolves of Willoughby chase series? They're old books so getting a bit hard to track down now, but they're really lovely.

[DilysPrice]

The RF are so awful that I found myself deliberately steering DD towards Malory Towers - Blyton's prose may not be any better but at least she has more than one plot.

[nickelbabe]

Falafel i think it was written as a backlash!
they're quite good, though! (but i think they're reprinting now. )

[FalafelAtYourFeet]

I loved the Redwall series as a child!

[BertieBotts]

I used to love Animal Ark and was quite sad when I discovered Lucy Daniels is also a team. I liked "her" series as well, Jess the Border Collie, they were for slightly older girls (8-12), quite well-written and started to deal with ishoos from friendship fall-outs to fire and death and depression. The main character's best friend dies of cancer though in the last book which made me cry buckets

God, that makes them sound really morbid now! They were a good series and had lots of good points too inamongst the grief - and although they dealt with heavy stuff they were not full of angst.

[MathsMadMummy]

I loved the Joan Aiken series!
I have very fond memories of snuggling up with my mum as she read me Blackhearts in Battersea

OMG I had no idea Lucy Daniels was a team! That is really misleading. Hmmph.

[TottWriter]

Can't say I ever used to read the Animal Ark books, but it does sound as though they at least had different plots, which is more than people are saying for this series franchise. (Or should that be the other way round for 'tact'? )

I'm also in agreement DilysPrice. Enid Blyton has its moments now we're able to take note of the happy white characters in their happy white world, but the stories themselves are written innocently enough as far as a child can make out. And by chopping betwen series you do get a bit of variety.

I think I got lucky by stumbling early into the inter-gender children's fiction, and reading an awful lot of children's classics such as Heidi and The Railway Children. Possibly why I'm now one of those people who rereads books again and again.

[barbarianoftheuniverse]

Lucy Daniels was indeed a team and so named because alphabetically it meant she would be shelved next to Roald Dahl. (Most popular author for that age group at the time.) Daisy Meadows is quite a few people- not PP (joke sorry not funny perhaps) but perfectly able writers expected to follow very strict formula.

Enid B got my dcs reading.

Echo Freer writes very good books for 8-11 ish girls- the Magenta series are funny and cool, dd raced through them aged about 9 and liked the very much.

[islandofsodor]

Well Redwall author Brian Jaques is definately not a team Falafel. He has a very nice agent who I spoke to about performing one of his children's plays.

[Tinuviel]

I've just been looking at the Dance Fairy section and there seem to be some they've missed out. I couldn't find Belinda the Belly-Dancing Fairy, Paula the Pole-Dancing Fairy and Lola the Lap-Dancing Fairy has gone AWOL too. They really should cover all types of dancing!

DD fortunately doesn't seem obsessive about these - just has the odd one. I still hate them though.

[melpomene]

TBH I'm surprised that they need any involvement from "authors" to create the Rainbow Magic books. They could simply use a word processing program to change the name of the stolen object and the location each time.

My dd collects them but rarely reads them, just looks at the covers and swaps them with her friends.

I've been buying her the Go Girl! series instead. Entertaining stories of girls dealing with real-world problems, and not a fairy or unicorn in sight.

[pourmeanotherglass]

of course you're not being unreasonable!

dd is a brilliant reader but has rubbish taste in books. She homes in on anything pink and sparkly.

I now tell her she can only have rubbish books if she reads them herself. I refuse to read rainbow fairies, tiara club, butterfly meadow, magic kitten/pony, HSM books of the films etc.

Her big sister is much more open to variety- I've really onjoyed reading her all kinds of books.

[hmc]

God they are so crap aren't they. My 7 year old loves fairies, princesses and all that stuff - but fortunately even she can now see after reading half a dozen of them) that they are shabby poor excuses for a story. She still insists on selecting the magic puppy / kitten shite though (although - they are marginally better imo)

Recently we've been reading Barrington Stoke books - written for dyslexics using appropriate language, appropriate font and on cream paper. Beauty is that you can get a book with a reading age of 7/8 but with a story line aimed at 9-12 for instance, thus a plot which is a bit more interesting and involved (she also happens to be dyslexic)

[Clary]

No don't avoid Rainbow Fairies.

They might get yr DD reading. That's great.

As I have posted before, I don't mind what my DC read. Tolkien, Harry Potter, The Beano, a football comic, shopping list...

My DD loved Rainbow Fairies but by 8.5 had stopped with them. We have a big shelf full. It's fine actually. I didn't have to hear the stories (she read them to herself). She loves Enid Blyton.

I think if you can hate books yr DC love to read then you have never (as I have) had a DC who won't read. Lucky you. I don't wish DS1 would read Jane Austen or even Anthony Horowitz - I just wish he would read something! anything!

SO yes YABU. Don't be such literary snobs.

LOL @Litchick, I have had the plan too!

[CarmenSanDiego]

Ugh, has anyone's dcs got into The Warriors yet? Erin Hunter, the author is another team. Three series so far, plus spin-off, plus a manga comic book set, ffs.

It's a massively convoluted tale of cats who have tribes and battles and so on. Really popular in the US but it seems the authors are British.

My grandmother on seeing the three page cast of characters described it as the feline Forsyte Saga.

[FalafelAtYourFeet]

Clary- DD is an absolute bookworm, I have no probs getting her to read, she walks around with a book in front of her nose even, it's just that since she started reading the RF books she has become obsessed with them.

I don't stop her from reading them but what is the problem with having a whinge to other parents who can recognise these books for the tripe that they are? You cannot honestly tell me you think they are exciting to read for an adult?

I am being a bit of a literary snob I suppose but I think you are confusing my online whingeing with what I say about them to DD, which is precisely nothing (with the occasional sigh/ wouldn't you like x instead) when she wants them read to her at bedtime)

[Clary]

Falafel if your DD is a bookworm than that's great.

My ds1 will not not not read anything despite all our efforts. It is very depressing. If I found something he would read I would jump for joy and frankly I wouldn't care if it was the Rainbow fairies!

I agree they are hardly the kind of book an adult enjoys, but then neither are many kids' books. I guess I just get fed up with people moaning about them and wanted to put the other point - that they are books, kids read them and love them, surely that's good.

(to be fair others on this thread have said the same thing).