This is well-written nonfiction that reads like a novel former fans and secret believers of fairy stories will thoroughly enjoy this account of how two girls fooled the world. The inclusion of the actual photographs and correspondences between the two girls and the two men who wished to prove to the world that fairies exist add depth and reality to the story. The book does a lovely job of portraying the youngsters in a well-rounded way Losure does not shy away from clearly stating that they lied, but also takes time to demonstrate their motivations behind creating (and sustaining) the hoax. The photos themselves are included and, like the astonishing true story, they are simultaneously silly and haunting. Losure's elegant and charmingly formal prose makes palpable the girls' loss of control as their fame spirals ever wider. Losure provides a straightforward narrative that gives young readers a sense of the girls' different personalities the girls' daily life in WWI Yorkshire and the type of small events that may well have provoked them to stage the photographs. In the early years of the twentieth century it was fairies that intrigued, especially those in a handful of photographs made by two girls in England.Losure has written an engaging account of the affair, focusing sympathetically on the two young photographers, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright.

The yearning for the supernatural and the magical to be real seems timeless.

From the bottle-green cover showing Elsie dreamily regarding a fairy to the book's creamy pages and art-nouveau lettering, 'The Fairy Ring' is as delightful to hold as it is captivating to read.

The Fairy Ring by Mary Losure