Darcey Bussell's Magic Ballerina series: as bad as Rainbow Fairies?

[Greythorne]

I have read various negative opinions on MN about Rainbow Fairy Books.

Any thoughts on the Magic Ballerina series by Darcey Bussell? Or the Tiara Club?

Are they all much of a terrible muchness?

My DD is keen on them, having seen them at friends', but i don't want to waste alot of money if they are all rubbish. (We live abroad, so delivery costs etc)

And if not Rainbow Fairies, Magic Ballerina and Tiara Club, then what?

My sister, who is a massive intellectual snob, is very keen on all those Rainbow Fairy type books for her DD, who is 6 months older than my DD - she says that anything that gets children's reading speed going is a good thing. And she's on her third child learning to read in a non-English speaking country and has invested masses in trash learner readers! And her elder two are voracious readers of all sorts of advanced literature.

So I tend to trust her judgement!

Having said that, I cannot get my not yet fluent reader DD to be interested in those learner reader books - she would rather decipher Kipling and Dickens at a painfully slow pace . I wish she'd be a bit more lowbrow until her skills were up to speed!

I think I am saying that that type of book is not literature and shouldn't be viewed through that prism, much as ORT and other reading schemes are not literature - they are there to impart a specific skill. In the case of phonics reading schemes, the skill is decoding; in the case of those Rainbow Fairy etc series, the skill is reading speed.

The trouble with the dratted fairy books is really only that there are far too many of them. If they'd stopped after the first couple of sets, we'd probably be saying how lovely they were. But there's only so many times an adult can cope with essentially the same story over and over and over again (just with different protagonist and object).

I suggest you get one set - ideally not one that her friend already has, then they can swop and share.

The Bussell ballet books are OK too - will The Book People deliver to where you are? Or could a Uk based friend buy and send out - they have these sorts of titles massively discounted on a regular basis.

I don't know the Tiara books. They look far to cute (for me) to stomach.

I would agree that Rainbow Magic are great for encouraging girls who like them to read. Just make sure you don't have to read them to her!

You know you can get a set for £9.99 at the Bookpeople.co.uk? I'm no way connected with them - I just used to use them when I was a school Librarian.

The books in the set are:

Rosa and the Magic Dream
Rosa and the Three Wishes
Rosa and the Special Prize
Rosa and the Magic Moonstone
Delphie and the Birthday Show
Rosa and the Golden Bird
Rosa and the Secret Princess
Delphie and the Glass Slippers
Delphie and the Maigc Spell
Delphie and the Magic Ballet Shoes
Delphie and the Masked Ball
Delphie and the Fairy Godmother
www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&productId=175177

You could always get them delivered to a friend and then post them on?

Wow, just checked Amazon.co.uk they are £3.99 each new.

Oh, I have got the wrong end of the stick, then, as DD1 is only 4.1 and not yet reading at all. I was looking at these as a first foray in to chapter books for me to read to her.....had no idea they were to foster reading skills in the child.

Back to the drawing board to find some decent chapter books for me to read aloud.

I have thought of Dahl, of course, but I think they will be too scary for my Dd who is a complete scaredy cat.

Greythorne - I think 4.1 is very little for chapter books. A really good picture book, with a proper story, is more likely to grab her attention at this age.

There is no particular benefit in moving on from picture books to chapter books too soon - what matters is the quality of the English in the story.

I find the best chapter books are the ones that have essentially a different story in each chapter so things like the far away tree books. Although dd1 who's almost 5 despite loving the stories complains there are not enough picture..

The magic ballerina books are more interesting that the Rainbow magic fairies but can sometimes be a bit scary. Dd read them when she first turned 6 and they do sometimes have scary witches and things. The rainbow magic books are not awfully intellectual but I think they have their place. The familiarity of plot and the good amount of illustration to words makes them great for children just starting to read alone. I think that they are the reason dd now reads so well. The book people have some great deals on both Rainbow Magic and magic ballerina.

The Magic Ballerina books are a thousand times better than the Rainbow fairy books in my opinion. One of the bonuses is that they are introduced to the world of ballet and the traditional ballet stories such as the Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, etc are included in the stories. They also have generally better stories and the vary from book to book. The Rainbow fairies series is up to 100 now but the story seems then same in nearly every story with such little variation.
My dd and I have just started reading the Secret Mermaid story and both throughly enjoyed sharing the first book together and we're starting the second book tonight. They are written by Sue Mongredien who is a great author who writes for boys and girls and her books are a similar size and level as the Rainbow fairy and Magic ballerina books but far superior in quality.

My DD loves the magic balllerina books, and I managed to get the first 2 sets on amazon at a really good price (gave the cousin the first four as I'd already picked them up 2nd hand). She's only 6 and in non-English speaking country too, and loves trying to read a paragraph or two each time we read one. (We're on to repeats now.) My problem is I can't find the 2nd two series in a similar deal - but then would too much of a good thing be a bad idea?!

Don't rule out Magic Ballerina books as chapter books for reading to a 4 year old. DD is 3.10 and we've just started the 1st one of the magic ballerina books, borrowed from a friend, and she is LOVING it! I'm a bit of a book snob but am enjoying it too. I tried Faraway Tree etc and couldn't bear it - I find this less tedious. But maybe won't feel the same after a dozen of them!

Greyhtorne - my dd loved the rainbow magic books from about 4. i read them to her (yawn) and she felt grown up as they had chapters. one chapter per evening was fine.

now she is older she is reading them by herself and they are engaging enough for her to 'want' to read them. i would recommend them, but just one or two sets as they are very repetitive.

I hated the rainbow magic books and refused to read them out loud but that is what has propelled DD2 (6) into reading on her own. She now gets through a few a week. She rarely goes back to one she's read before so we get them from the local library which has them all. I'm hoping she'll move on to something more interesting but am keeping quiet. DD1 (9) who has never been into fairies, chooses books that I like too (Michael Morpurgo and similar) but always waits for me to read them to her. So I would definitely recommend the fairy books just don't put yourself through the torture of reading them too!

Well, the Magic Ballerina series isn't that bad.I'm actually planning to write a crossover, and mix it with Batosupi (that's Battle Spirits).The worst bit about this series is that the characters going to Enchantia every time their life goes wrong, solve a similar problem there, and come back armed with the solution,while no time has passed in the real world.I n my plot, they just came here for a holiday.

Greythorne, why don't you try reading her something like Olga da Polga or Paddington Bear, both by Michael Bond.
Or Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf?

When DD was that age I read My Naughty Little Sister, Amelia Jane, the Enchanted Wood, The Twits.

The tiara club are dreadful.......(in my opinion after hearing DD reads what seemed like hundreds as school reading books)
How about the worst witch books?