Fairy Mom and Me

Sophie Kinsella's Fairy Mom and Me is a first chapter book for 5 year olds about a mum who can turn into a fairy and gets the spells wrong almost every time.

What happens

Ella Brook lives in Cherrywood with her mum, her dad and her baby brother Ollie. Her mum looks like everybody else's mum. Then she stamps her feet three times, claps her hands, wiggles her behind, says Marshmallow, and POOF.

Wings. A silver crown. A wand called the Computawand V5 with a screen, an Extra-Fast Magic button and its own apps.

The trouble is the spell codes. Mum can never remember them, and she's in far too much of a hurry to check.

So when Ollie tips the milk jug over at breakfast, Mum decides she'll magic up some more rather than walk to the shop. Out of the Computawand comes a cow. A whole cow, in the kitchen! It knocks the apples off the table and breaks three of Mum's favourite cups.

Second attempt. The ceiling starts raining chocolate milk. (Ella licks it off her chin and asks if they can have this every day.)

Dad, who can't do magic and says he can park the car instead, goes to fetch a cloth.

Then there's the supermarket, where Mum speeds up the checkout, then speeds up the entire shop, and ends with flour bursting everywhere and a woman on the floor shouting that the eggs are alive. It's Ella who remembers the code for the spell that fixes it. Four nine nine, not four five nine.

That's the shape of it, and it's a lovely shape for this age. The grown-up is the one making the mess. The child is the one quietly keeping up, and she gets to save the day without ever being smug about it.

The sentences are short and the noises are half the fun, all the bleep-bleep-bloops and the splat of a chocolate mousse hitting the floor. Ollie is a wonderful small horror who says weezi-weezi-weezi and eats a baked bean out of his own nose.

One small thing. This is the American edition, so it's Mom rather than Mum on the page, along with a shopping cart and a register at the checkout. Easy enough to swap as you read aloud, though one to keep an eye on if they're tackling it alone.

What to read next

Ella carries on in Fairy in Waiting, where there are very naughty monkeys, a swimming pool filled with ice cream and a birthday party that gets thoroughly out of hand.