Every year, Giselle the Christmas Ballet Fairy's special magic helps every holiday ballet show run perfectly. But when Jack Frost crashes a performance and steals her magic objects, it looks like everything will be ruined!
Rachel and Kirsty need to get the magic objects back in time for the Fairyland Christmas Eve ballet performance. They'll have to harness all the magic of the season to help Giselle. If they don't succeed, holiday shows everywhere will be ruined by Fairyland's biggest Grinch!
Find the magic objects in all three stories inside this Rainbow Magic Special Edition and help save the Christmas magic!
Daisy Meadows is the pseudonym used for the four writers of the Rainbow Magic children's series: Narinder Dhami, Sue Bentley, Linda Chapman, and Sue Mongredien. Rainbow Magic features differing groups of fairies as main characters, including the Jewel fairies, Weather fairies, Pet fairies, Petal fairies, and Sporty fairies.
Narinder Dhami was born in Wolverhampton, England on November 15, 1958. She received a degree in English from Birmingham University in 1980. After having taught in primary and secondary schools for several years she began to write full-time. Dhami has published many retellings of popular Disney stories and wrote the Animal Stars and Babes series, the latter about young British girls of Asian origin. She lives in Cambridge, England with her husband and cats.
Sue Bentley was born in Northampton, England. She worked in a library after completing her education and began writing for children once her own began school. Bentley is the author of the Magic Kitten, Magic Puppy, and S Club series and lives in Northamptonshire.
Linda Chapman has written over 50 children's fiction books, including the following series: My Secret Unicorn, Stardust, Not Quite a Mermaid, and Unicorn School. She lives in Leicestershire with her husband and daughters.
Sue Mongredien was born in 1970 and grew up in Nottingham, England. She has published over 100 children's books, including the following series: The Adventures of Captain Pugwash, The Magic Key, Frightful Families, and Oliver Moon. She has also contributed many titles to the Sleepover Club series and written picture books. Mongredien created the Royal Ballet School Diaries under the pen name Alexandra Moss. She lives with her family in Bath, England.
This book is everything that Paige the Christmas Play Fairy should’ve been! The items made sense, the main ballet of the book is Christmas-adjacent (I think Swan Lake would qualify as Christmas-adjacent) and there was a lot for readers to learn about ballet. I mean, I didn’t even know that was common for Odette and Odile to be portrayed by the same dancer, I thought that was something the book made because the idea itself just sounds so difficult that I refused to believe that this is something that actually happens. (I also really appreciated the scenes where the girls would interact with the ballerinas and learn more about them and more about ballet.)
Let’s talk about Giselle’s three magical items - the water bottle, the dance bag and ballet slippers. First off, it’s interesting that the items were stolen one by one instead of all at once… however, you’d think it would be harder for Jack Frost to steal the other two items after stealing the water bottle, but I digress. (Also, Giselle politely correcting Jack Frost and him getting butt hurt about it is amazingly accurate.) Starting off with the water bottle, I think that having this item represent the health and wellness of the dancers was a fantastic choice. Actually, having Giselle look after the ballerinas themselves instead of just ‘ballet’ was a really good idea to begin with because there are so many aspects of ballet and focusing on a specific part of it just makes more sense. Then we have the dance bag which ensures that rehearsals go well - also very solid! The final item was the ballet slippers that made nothing went wrong with the costumes - again, great reasoning. Overall, a really well-thought-out plot in my opinion.
There were also some specific things that I wanted to point out.
Pros: -Shoutout to Rachel in part one for having the cutest outfit ever! Also, we love the consistency of best-friends in matching ponytails. (Their leotards were also super cute!) -Them entering a ‘Best Friends Forever’ competition is so cute! I’m curious now if this competition was mentioned in a previous book or series. -Look at Kirsty and her jeté to get the water bottle. .(It should’ve been Rachel, the canonical, established ballerina.). -“Maybe if we glued some glitter on this bottle?” - LOL, I wanted to be like Rachel and Kirsty, and instead I share the same brain cell as Jack Frost’s goblins. -The group of fairies watching Giselle is so interesting to me - Sophia the Snow Swan Fairy (we’re doing Swan Lake, so fine), Holly the Christmas Fairy (it’s a Christmas ballet, makes sense), Eva the Enchanted Ball Fairy (UM?!), Miranda the Beauty Fairy (an argument could be made here) and two unnamed fairies (neither of whom look like Bethany the Ballet Fairy and what the fuck is up with that?!) -I love the random bits of new Fairyland lore that they throw at us every now and then. -The art for the scene where Giselle makes the trees dance to scare the goblins is so pretty! -Pg. 135 - Jack Frost in a leotard, attempting to dance… nightmare fuel potential, actually my sleep paralysis demon
Cons: -We established that Rachel does ballet in previous books, like, she takes lessons and has been in shows - why was that completely ignored throughout this book? -We got ONE throwaway line about the Dance Fairies and I truly hate it here because what do you mean you’re not going to bring up Bethany the Ballet Fairy in a book about ballet?!
Daisy Meadows and her fairies are my childhood. I collected so many in my youth, knowing all the fairies and their importance, and sticking with the two special girls who go to be a part of the magic. Years ago I had to give my beautiful collection away, now still part of my childhood school where little girls are picking their favourite fairies and playing pretend. It's fun to hear stories from my old teachers telling me how over the years so many students have grabbed these books and fallen in love with the tales of two girls, Jack Frost and the fabulous glittering magic that is the fairies. On Christmas last year, my sister surprised me with a boxset of these books, but cause you cannot collect these darlings as easily anymore. I was over the moon! If anyone has a little one who needs a little magic in their life, wants to read and needs a big creation to be hooked on...it is Daisy Meadows!
It was a cute book, I get this series was meant for younger kids around 2nd-4th grade but I think it'd be better if it was more difficult to get the items back that Jack Frost takes. It seems like the characters trick them once and the goblins give the item back easily after one try.