Fairy House Cooking: Simple, Scrumptious Recipes & Fairy Party Fun!, by Liza Gardner Walsh, (June 2017, Down East Books), $16.95, ISBN: 978-1-60893-641-0
Recommended for readers 4-12
If there’s one magical creature whose popularity is eternal, it’s fairies. Fairy House Cooking is perfect for fairy-themed parties, playdates, or… you guessed it… library programming.
This is a beautifully constructed and photographed cookbook. It’s spiral-bound, so it may take some licks in circulation if you’re putting this in a library; it does help keep the book turned to your recipe while you’re cooking, though, so that’s a big plus, especially for developing chefs. Recipes are rated by difficulty: one fairy wing for, “you got this”, which I love. And which helps make this book perfect for younger creators (and perfect for my no-bake library programs). Two wings is a little more of a challenge – have a grownup in the room. Three wings, you definitely need a grownup and some teamwork to get the job done. Pleasantly, there’s equal time given to recipes of each difficulty level, so little ones can really make some fun recipes, like pretzel and fruit wands and nut-free bird’s nest cookies. There’s sections on safety, allergies, and cleaning up, and author Liza Gardner Walsh uses empowering words to boost kids’ confidence as they read; the words are bolded through the text and Walsh includes a special note on making mistakes, and how it’s okay. It happens. (Don’t ask me about the time I used baking soda to coat the table and roll out my holiday cookies, when I ran out of flour. Just don’t.)
Recipes are collected under five different chapter umbrellas: Fairy Mornings (breakfast foods); Foods Inspired by Fairies and Fairy Homes (featuring some of the most adorable food photography ever); Fairy Foraging (working with fruits… and flowers!); Fairy Parties (finger foods, party foods and drinks); and Recipes for the Fairies and their Friends, a section that encourages your kiddos to get out in there in the backyard and play; create something that the fairies and their friends would like to nibble on – from bird popsicles and birdseed cookies to mudpies of all types. There are recipes for fairy face paint and fairy dust, and everything here is good for the planet: the fairies wouldn’t have it any other way.
There are fun sidebars and callouts with tips to make your projects extra fun, and the photography is vibrant and colorful, with kids working together to make their recipes come together. Boys feature here, too, so make sure to make your party equal opportunity fun. A list of resources and websites links readers to more cookbooks for kids. Make a full-blown fairy day by letting kids make fairy doors, fairy wings, and any number of fairy crafts you can find. Pinterest has OODLES of ideas.
Definitely time for a fairy program at my library.
Mom Read It 