Gift from Penelope and Larissa

Four girls with different interests and personalities are whisked off to Neverland and must find their way home again.

#2 The Space Between
#3 A Dandelion Wish

Lainey, Kate, Mia, and Gabi get caught up in a blink and end up in Never Land. There they meet Tinker Bell and the other pixies. They get a tour and a chance to fly but Kate wants to fly back unlike other children in the past so she finds a pixie who will help her return.

I enjoyed this story. Tink is funny. She definitely has certain ideas of how things should work. I liked the girls even if Kate breaks some rules. This is for beginner readers but is fun for adults to relive believing in fairies. Looking forward to book 2. ( )

This book was actually recommended to me by my younger cousin. She loved the story and has begun reading the series. This is the first of a series that is particularly popular among young girls because it is a story of four girls who go on an adventure. They experience things they never thought they could experience and see things that seem unreal. The come in contact with several different fairies and disney characters that make the book filled with excitement. All of their favorite characters are put into one series of chapter books in stories that are sometimes related to the movies about the characters and sometimes not. ( )

This is a wonderful story about four girls who are all close friends who go into a world that they could never imagine going. Some girls are hearing different things and are visually seeing things that others may see as impossible. Well that is until they come across the infamous Tinkerbell and the other fairies! This book is filled with wonderful adventures and imagination for the readers to get lost in and they can use their prior knowledge of the Peter Pan experience and the imagination and wonder of Never Land! It is not only the imagination of the adventure of this book that makes it so wonderful but the pictures that go along with the text of this book to really grasp the attention of the reader! ( )

I'm always torn by these company tie-ins. On the one hand, they tend to be really popular. Kids like easily recognizable characters, they like to continue the stories from tv that they love, they like the often pretty illustrations and slick marketing. On the other hand, the writing tends to be bland, if not downright painful, and the commercial elements make me feel squicky. I try to keep a balance in my collection and if I see something that I can recommend without wincing too much and I know it will circulate like crazy, I am on that series like that.

This series is a spin-off of the popular Disney Fairies/Tinker Bell franchise. Kate, Mia and Lainey are best friends, even if they have very different interests. Gabby, Mia's little sister, tags along. One day each of the girls hears or sees something magical ending in Gabby seeing an actual fairy, Prilla. Prilla accidentally "blinks" the four girls to Neverland and they have magical and sometimes frightening adventures before finding a way home...they hope. Or would they rather stay on in Neverland?

The plot is thin and the writing a bit wandering, but kids who are fans of Tinker Bell and the Disney Fairies will love the references to familiar magic places, fairies, and things. I also received a copy of the 3rd title in the series, A Dandelion Wish and the characters are more developed as the series continues. The combination of the girls and their everyday concerns and squabbles with the magical world of Neverland is done very well. I appreciated that Mia and Gabby throw in occasional Spanish, but their race isn't belabored and they get a primary part of the story, instead of being the token multicultural friend. I really love Jana Christy's sweet pictures and they're a perfect match for this series. They have a light, magical feel to them and combine the fantasy world of the fairies and the everyday world of the girls very well.

Verdict: There are several other fairy series that are better-written from a literary standpoint, and if we're comparing my preference would be for the Fairy Bell Sisters series by Margaret McNamara, but this will definitely be a high-circulation item and it nicely combines friendship and fantasy in a way that's not overly sweet or too Disneyfied. If you have Disney fairy fans, or kids looking for beginning chapters with a little bit of magic, this will be perfect.

ISBN: 9780736427944; Published January 2013 by Stepping Stone/Random House; Review copy provided by the publisher; Purchased for the library