Flower Fairies of the Trees

Another fantastic collection of flower fairies from Cicely Mary Barker, even though many of the flowers weren't strictly related to flowers. Lots of the trees in this collection were obviously chosen because they were of the flowering variety (fruit trees in abundance), but I honestly found the non-flowering trees to be a nice change. The sweet chestnut fairy was a particular favourite because of his ridiculous spiky hat - English chestnuts must be of a different variety than the ones I'm used to seeing, because ours aren't edible and their spiky shells are even more so. Besides Barker's excellent grasp of illustrating her trees, the settings for these fairies gave her a lot of room to play with for innovative poses. Her fairies are show more shown perched on branches, balancing on falling seeds, and playfully swinging from fine branches or vines, which gives them a truely childlike and carefree attitude that is absent in some of the more staid garden poses. Now to go and find a tree to climb in! show less

For all my love of fairy-lore, this is the first Cicely Mary Barker book I've got my hands on. The illustrations are wonderful, and I can stare at them for hours just thumbing through the book. Which is lucky, 'cause the poems to go with the illustrations are entirely forgettable.

The coolest thing about this book, though, it that it's actually functional as a field guide to garden trees. The illustrations show leaves and flowers or seeds for each tree, and it has a guide to scientific names in the front. I've been looking for a good, small book of non-native ornamentals for awhile, and I'd've picked it up just for that!

I love Cicely Mary Barker's exquisite art, but her poems I usually skip.

These are the fairies that appear in Flower Fairies of the Trees, in alphabetical order:

Alder Fairy
Almond Blossom Fairy
Ash Tree Fairy
Beech Tree Fairy
Cherry Tree Fairy
(show all 19 items)
Elder Fairy
Elm Tree Fairy
Guelder Rose Fairies
Laburnum Fairy
Lilac Fairy
Lime Tree Fairy
Mulberry Fairy
Pear Blossom Fairy
Poplar Fairy
Silver Birch Fairy
Sweet Chestnut Fairy
Sycamore Fairy
Wild Cherry Blossom Fairy
Willow Fairy

Wonderful, whimsical world of Cicely Mary Barker.