Too Many Fairies: A Celtic Tale

A Celtic story with no real hints at Celtic culture beside the story itself. I'm starting to feel that if you are going to say its a cultural tale, then not include the culture in illustrations, that you are doing a disservice to the story. I do like the illustrations. But the story would be more appealing with cultural background.

A good children book with very deep beautiful artwork that still has a simple feel to it, which is appropriate with characters. I really like how, unlike must children books, the main character is an old woman. Even though with her age, I think she is relateable to a wide age range, and I felt for her getting bored when there was no work for to do because of those pesky fairies. My only concern is that for a children book, it is not that relateable to children, as I have never seen a child want to do chores. I would like to get a kids opinion of this book.

The pictures were cute, but bordered on a little too twee... But the story had a great structure, lots of action words (I love me some onamonapia action). The use of repetitive phrases was also well done and the story had a good rhythm to it. Would be a good story to tell with props.

A Folktale about an old woman that complains about doing housework, only to have her house invaded by annoying cleaning fairies. A very fun read with adorable illustrations

Too many fairies is a cute book about fairies who come to help an old woman who is complaining about housework. The problem is that the fairies do all the housework, the house is clean, and then they tear the house apart and do it all again. The old woman seeks advice from the locals and the local said that she must never complain again. She must call all the fairies out of the house lock the door mess up the house and clean it herself. The fairies want to help, but the woman refuses to let them in. She sits in her quiet house that she cleaned herself and never complained again!

This tale teaches a valuable lesson: don't complain! A lot more can be taken from this marvelous tale, however. Stories not only teach us morals, but also about different cultures and traditions. That's why it is so important for teachers and parents to diversify their kids' libraries and tell them a little bit about where each story came from. Not only is it an opportunity for them to learn about different countries and cultures, but how similar those different countries and cultures can be to our own.

I really like this book. In this case, I liked the illustrations as much as the story. I plan to use this one with my grades K-1 library class before school is out. After reading a few that were less than great, it was nice change of pace.

Curricular Connections: This is a great example to use in a unit of folktales for any grade. I like it is Celtic in origin as I feel these folktales might be a little under explored.