Fairy Bell Sisters 03 – Golden at the Fancy-Dress Party

Margaret McNamara's Golden at the Fancy-Dress Party is a sparkly fairy story for 6 year olds about a very stylish fairy on her first big trip away from her sisters.

What happens

Goldie is one of Tinker Bell's little sisters (yes, THAT Tinker Bell). She lives with Clara, Rosy, Sylva and baby Squeak on Sheepskerry Island. She's headstrong, very stubborn and happiest when she's trying on outfits. Stacking firewood? Not so much.

So when Queen Titania invites one fairy from each island to a fancy-dress party on the mainland, the whole school chants Goldie's name. Off she goes on the back of a seal called Merryweather, with three carpetbags of luggage (one just for shoes).

The mainland is big, busy and rather snooty. Her hosts, the Townley sisters, are very unfriendly. They win the costume prize every year, and they're not keen on island fairies turning up with clever ideas.

Goldie finds reading hard. The letters blur and jump around the page for her. On the mainland, fairies who struggle with reading end up as servants, which is exactly what's happened to her lovely new friend Avery.

So when the costume theme arrives on a scroll in very fancy handwriting, Goldie can't make it out. And Claudine Townley kindly offers to read it to her...

You can probably guess. It's a mean trick and it really stings. But Goldie doesn't give up. She straightens her pointy hat and flies off to the party with a plan.

The storyteller chats straight to the reader, which makes it great fun to read aloud. At one point the book asks if you'll carry on, then cheers when you turn the page!

Goldie's reading trouble is written with real kindness. It's never what's wrong with her. It's just one thing about her, sitting next to her amazing eye for colours and making things.

This is the third Fairy Bell Sisters book, but it works perfectly well on its own. The chapters are short and there's a big dollop of sisterly squabbling at the start that most families will recognise.

What to read next

If they fall for the sisters, Sylva and the Fairy Ball is the first book, where Sylva is desperate to go to a ball she isn't quite old enough for.