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The Magpie King
A beautiful middle grade magical adventure.In the large and frightening world of the Bigguns, Tatty Moon, a faerie child, must rid her village of thieving magpies and rampaging Gnomes, all under the spell of the Queen's merciless nephew. With the help of a group of friends who include a gypsy, an elf, a wood sprite, an elderly rat, and a hawk-sized dragonfly, Tatty journeys far to try and defeat him. (Book One in the Tatty Moon series.)This book runs to 39 chapters, and is written for ages 8 years and up.'I'm so glad I took the time to devour this delicious book.''Wings and lovely things!'
- GenresMiddle GradeChildrens
234 pages, Paperback
First published March 14, 2014
About the author
M.J. Fahy
3 books41 followersM.J. Fahy lives on the south coast of England and writes and illustrates middle grade fiction from a writing shed in her garden. She is married with two adult children, two dogs and a deaf cat.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 17, 2019
Book Reviewed on www.whisperingstories.com
The Magpie King is a children’s fantasy/fairy-tale book featuring a tiny faerie called Tatty Moon who lives in the English countryside in the town of Little Upham. Her best friend is William Patch who is an elf, he also lives in Little Upham.
The pair get up to lots of adventures which feature plenty of animals such as cats, magpies, dragonflies, and even a few gnomes as well as the evil magpie king, Cormac. There’s also a Queen who needs her help.
The story also features some wonderful human characters too including an elderly couple, Hilda and George Parsons, who know all about the faeries and like to keep watch over them and Bert the Postman.
The whole story is one big adventure featuring some tiny characters who are all wonderful and most have their own way of speaking. Tatty reminded me slightly of Tinker-Bell, especially when she got mad.
Whilst I think the story is very pleasing and is wonderful with a clean, slightly old-fashioned plot I was a little disappointed to see it only had a tiny illustration at the start of each chapter. With so much happening I wanting to see it in detail and I’m sure kids will too. I also think that the book is a little bit long for the average middle-grade reader and it will take them a while to get through it.
Overall for confident middle-grade readers who love fantasy, this book would be the perfect purchase.
The Magpie King is a children’s fantasy/fairy-tale book featuring a tiny faerie called Tatty Moon who lives in the English countryside in the town of Little Upham. Her best friend is William Patch who is an elf, he also lives in Little Upham.
The pair get up to lots of adventures which feature plenty of animals such as cats, magpies, dragonflies, and even a few gnomes as well as the evil magpie king, Cormac. There’s also a Queen who needs her help.
The story also features some wonderful human characters too including an elderly couple, Hilda and George Parsons, who know all about the faeries and like to keep watch over them and Bert the Postman.
The whole story is one big adventure featuring some tiny characters who are all wonderful and most have their own way of speaking. Tatty reminded me slightly of Tinker-Bell, especially when she got mad.
Whilst I think the story is very pleasing and is wonderful with a clean, slightly old-fashioned plot I was a little disappointed to see it only had a tiny illustration at the start of each chapter. With so much happening I wanting to see it in detail and I’m sure kids will too. I also think that the book is a little bit long for the average middle-grade reader and it will take them a while to get through it.
Overall for confident middle-grade readers who love fantasy, this book would be the perfect purchase.
March 30, 2015
Full of Charm and Colourful Characters
I absolutely loved this book! It was an amazing story, full of charm with its many colourful characters. It was a grand adventure. The setting is in the English countryside and I enjoyed the accent and way of speaking.
Tatty Moon, a faery, is the main character whose destiny is to be queen one day. Meanwhile she lives a very humble existence going on adventures with her elf friend, Willum. Other characters include, witches, gypsies, bigguns (normal sized people like ourselves), and talking animals (from living around a lot of faerie magic. On the bad/evil side is Cormac, the Magpie King. He is also a faery whose ambition is to rule in his aunt’s stead, his aunt being the present queen. He has the Magpies and Gnomes under his control and has wreaked havoc on all the other creatures.
Each chapter contains its own mini story that is perfect for the middle grade reader. M.J. Fahy has woven us a memorable, enjoyable tale that I am sure is destined to become a classic on par with The Wind in the Willows.
I most highly recommend this book.
I absolutely loved this book! It was an amazing story, full of charm with its many colourful characters. It was a grand adventure. The setting is in the English countryside and I enjoyed the accent and way of speaking.
Tatty Moon, a faery, is the main character whose destiny is to be queen one day. Meanwhile she lives a very humble existence going on adventures with her elf friend, Willum. Other characters include, witches, gypsies, bigguns (normal sized people like ourselves), and talking animals (from living around a lot of faerie magic. On the bad/evil side is Cormac, the Magpie King. He is also a faery whose ambition is to rule in his aunt’s stead, his aunt being the present queen. He has the Magpies and Gnomes under his control and has wreaked havoc on all the other creatures.
Each chapter contains its own mini story that is perfect for the middle grade reader. M.J. Fahy has woven us a memorable, enjoyable tale that I am sure is destined to become a classic on par with The Wind in the Willows.
I most highly recommend this book.
August 4, 2018
3 stars
The Magpie King is a middle-grade fantasy tale aimed at readers aged between nine and thirteen years old.
Tatty Moon is a faerie who lives with her family in a willow tree in Little Upham. Her best friend is Will Patch, an elf. Together they have an adventure which involves evil birds, a faerie gone bad, and a queen who sends them on a quest. See here for full review https://wp.me/p2Eu3u-bzW
The Magpie King is a middle-grade fantasy tale aimed at readers aged between nine and thirteen years old.
Tatty Moon is a faerie who lives with her family in a willow tree in Little Upham. Her best friend is Will Patch, an elf. Together they have an adventure which involves evil birds, a faerie gone bad, and a queen who sends them on a quest. See here for full review https://wp.me/p2Eu3u-bzW
June 24, 2014
An engaging story, full of warmth, humour, and flights of imagination, featuring faeries, elves, sprites, gnomes, gypsies, kings and queens, humans, and all kinds of animals. Far better than most stories of its genre, and should appeal to children and adults alike.
Memorable characters include: Bert Bottomly, the somewhat grumpy bicycle riding human postman; Hilda and George Parsons, an elderly human couple who regularly spy on the faeries through binoculars; Delilah, the Bottomlys’ cat, who terrorizes the faeries; Agatha Pottage, a benevolent witch and shop proprietor who changes the size of herself and her shop depending upon whether her customer is a tiny faery or a full-sized human; Dorcas Gumble, a Gypsy who befriends the faery girl Tatty and her elf friend William; flocks of magpies employing a sharp, eerily demented collective animal intelligence in service to the ambitious and scheming magpie king Cormac; malevolent, mischievous and smelly subterranean gnomes; and a boy with a human head and an insect body.
So much I like and could say about this book, but one thing that struck me is that in some ways “The Magpie King” reminded me of “Tom Sawyer:” It is a children’s book, but also a full length novel that makes great reading for adults. Most of the book reads like a series of time sequential but otherwise loosely related stories in the life of the young faery girl Tatty, as the main story emerges only much later in the book. As in “Tom Sawyer,” the story wends towards a climactic confrontation that marks a passage from childhood to adulthood. It’s as though the child is blissfully unaware of where the story is leading until it gets there, which is very much like the way a child thinks and lives, one day at a time. Not that I expect children to think of the story in that way, but a child’s time frame and attention span is shorter than an adult’s, so it’s appropriate that the book doesn’t have the sustained thrust of a purely adult novel. It can be read as a collection of stories, as a childhood summer is a collection of days, meandering without having to be continually heading towards a defined destination. Each chapter is a story in itself, and that’s how I read Tom Sawyer when I was a child, one chapter at a time.
The characters and their world are all portrayed in vivid descriptive detail and with great affection, and I enjoyed the time I spent with them in their world. I did want for the antagonist and his minions to have put up a better and longer fight. I look forward to the sequel.
Memorable characters include: Bert Bottomly, the somewhat grumpy bicycle riding human postman; Hilda and George Parsons, an elderly human couple who regularly spy on the faeries through binoculars; Delilah, the Bottomlys’ cat, who terrorizes the faeries; Agatha Pottage, a benevolent witch and shop proprietor who changes the size of herself and her shop depending upon whether her customer is a tiny faery or a full-sized human; Dorcas Gumble, a Gypsy who befriends the faery girl Tatty and her elf friend William; flocks of magpies employing a sharp, eerily demented collective animal intelligence in service to the ambitious and scheming magpie king Cormac; malevolent, mischievous and smelly subterranean gnomes; and a boy with a human head and an insect body.
So much I like and could say about this book, but one thing that struck me is that in some ways “The Magpie King” reminded me of “Tom Sawyer:” It is a children’s book, but also a full length novel that makes great reading for adults. Most of the book reads like a series of time sequential but otherwise loosely related stories in the life of the young faery girl Tatty, as the main story emerges only much later in the book. As in “Tom Sawyer,” the story wends towards a climactic confrontation that marks a passage from childhood to adulthood. It’s as though the child is blissfully unaware of where the story is leading until it gets there, which is very much like the way a child thinks and lives, one day at a time. Not that I expect children to think of the story in that way, but a child’s time frame and attention span is shorter than an adult’s, so it’s appropriate that the book doesn’t have the sustained thrust of a purely adult novel. It can be read as a collection of stories, as a childhood summer is a collection of days, meandering without having to be continually heading towards a defined destination. Each chapter is a story in itself, and that’s how I read Tom Sawyer when I was a child, one chapter at a time.
The characters and their world are all portrayed in vivid descriptive detail and with great affection, and I enjoyed the time I spent with them in their world. I did want for the antagonist and his minions to have put up a better and longer fight. I look forward to the sequel.
July 27, 2014
A wonderful, charming story. It's so warm and at the same time hasn't been over-done like many children's book which end up being sterile
There are a lot of lovable characters. I think my favourite was Bert the Postman and I really felt for him when he lost his bike. The main character is Tatty, who is strong and brave, cocky and adorable. She put me in mind of a female Peter Pan, with all the depth and quirks that make her a real person despite being a little winged creature.
The end battle felt a little rushed and in some places could have been explained better or given more detail. I'd have liked to see more of a struggle with the bad guys, more involvement with the magpies and an "Everyone is all right after all" scenario that didn't feel like it was placed there out of an obligation to the reader.
That said, the story ends in a good place and anything other than that wouldn't have felt right.
There are a lot of lovable characters. I think my favourite was Bert the Postman and I really felt for him when he lost his bike. The main character is Tatty, who is strong and brave, cocky and adorable. She put me in mind of a female Peter Pan, with all the depth and quirks that make her a real person despite being a little winged creature.
The end battle felt a little rushed and in some places could have been explained better or given more detail. I'd have liked to see more of a struggle with the bad guys, more involvement with the magpies and an "Everyone is all right after all" scenario that didn't feel like it was placed there out of an obligation to the reader.
That said, the story ends in a good place and anything other than that wouldn't have felt right.
July 24, 2014
This is a lovely well written children's book, set in an English countryside where the fairy, Tatty Moon, struggles against cats, gnomes, magpies, and an evil de-winged Cormac. Somewhere, over yonder, there's the Palace Over Yonder (yep that's it's name, and it's no where near Woebetide Wood) where a fairy queen needs some help. This book has some wonderful characters in it. I loved the country accent that the characters use. There's Bert the postman, and his wife Dot; Dorcas the gypsy lady, with her magical travelling caravan; there's Will the Elf, a little milk thief, and many others. Well done M. J. Fahy, write another Tatty Moon book for us, please!
January 8, 2015
The Magpie King is a refreshing tale that little kids and big kids (like myself) will thoroughly enjoy. The characters are so full of life, they burst off the pages. Each chapter reads like a little story in itself. This is a book I bought because I liked it's cover - and the story inside matches it's cover. It's charming, funny and simply brilliant. It reminded me of my childhood reading. Fahy is a natural-born storyteller. I look forward to more of her books. The Magpie King has the makings of a classic. Highly recommended!
April 26, 2020
I loved this book, it's one of the best children's fantasy novels I've read in a long time. The worldbuilding is enchanting, full of magic and beautiful descriptions, and the characters, both good and bad, are wonderfully vivid and draw you deeper into the story - I was rooting for Tatty Moon all the way through! The Magpie King is a book that definitely appeals to children and adults alike, as all readers will get lost in this highly imaginative world full of faeries, elves and all kinds of other exciting creatures. A must for school libraries and children's bookshelves.
September 15, 2014
I found The Magpie King to be a beautiful children’s book. Fantastic characters with unique voices lead the reader through a sweet and humorous story. The descriptions are vivid as Tatty Moon, with a charming personality, embarks in a wonderful adventure while touching the lives of those around her.
March 16, 2015
A very charming story and lovable characters. I am definitely not a child but have really enjoyed reading this book! Highly recommended
August 6, 2018
V sweet without being twee - RTC
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews