One of my favourite tales as a child was ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’ I think I liked the idea of these magical little elves making shoes as big as themselves. As an adult I often find myself wishing some elves would come during the night & work magic on my never ending ‘to do’ list.

Part of my fondness for the story is tied up in the specific ladybird edition I read (I am intrigued by the change in illustrative & language style across the years for these ladybird editions, but that’s a post for another day) While I couldn’t share the same edition, the copy we have is much loved by Bryn and a perfect size for when out & about.

I recently picked up a copy of ‘The Real Fairy Storybook, Stories the fairies tell themselves’ by George Adams & Sally Gardner. A collection of 5 stories framed by a running conversation between a group of fairies sewing a ball gown for the Fairy Queen. I picked up this book as I loved the varied styles of illustration & while pink on the outside inside is a riot of colours, textures & attitude. The story Bryn is most fond of is ‘The Shoemaker & the Robber Elves’ a funny retelling of the Elves & the Shoemaker story where the Elves are the cause of the shoemakers misery by stealing all the shoes, luckily a fairy comes to the rescue for a happy ending.

I enjoy the magical fun quality elves & fairies can inject into stories especially with regards to scale and it seems Bryn does too. As this previous post shows Freya has also shown an early interest in Fairies.