Fairy Bell Sisters 05 – Sylva and the Lost Treasure

Margaret McNamara's Sylva and the Lost Treasure is the fifth Fairy Bell Sisters book, a sweet fairy story for 6 year olds about two best friends and one very small kitten.

What happens

It's spring-cleaning time on Sheepskerry Island, where Tinker Bell's little sisters live. The best bit of spring-cleaning is the jumble pile, where every fairy leaves the things she doesn't want outside the palace. Sylva has never found a proper treasure there. This year she and Poppy, who've been best friends since they were tiny, arrive too late. It's nearly all gone.

Then Lady Courtney staggers out of the palace with a big old crate. Inside is the most beautiful fairy dollhouse, with velvet sofas, lace curtains and tiny copper pans. It used to belong to Queen Mab and a friend of hers, and now it's theirs!

The girls share it very fairly. Poppy gets the upstairs and Sylva gets the downstairs. So when they find a tiny doll kitten on the upstairs windowsill, and it magically comes to life, whose kitten is it?

Oh dear. Cross words are said. Sylva stomps off and slams her bedroom door. Poppy takes Lucky home. And far out at sea, a ship with filthy black sails is heading for the island...

This is a lovely gentle one about a falling-out that feels very real. Sylva isn't a baddie. She's just hurt and jealous and a bit too proud to say sorry first (who hasn't been there?). Her big sisters are kind but they leave her to sort it out herself, which is exactly right.

The narrator chats straight to your reader all the way through. She asks what kind of ship has black sails. She stops a chapter short so nobody faints from excitement! It makes it a really good one to read aloud together.

The pirates, when they arrive, are more silly than scary. Captain Sinker has a terrible cold and is frightened of ghosts. There's a tense moment when Lucky gets shut in his treasure chest, but it's all very much pitched at younger readers.

What to read next

This is the fifth book, but it stands on its own fine. If you'd like to start at the beginning, Sylva and the Fairy Ball is the first Fairy Bell Sisters story, where Sylva is desperate to go to her first ball and finds out she's one day too young.