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Fairy Door Diaries: Eliza and the Flower Fairies

Part of Fairy Door Diaries

Author Megan McDonald

Illustrated by Lenny Wen

Hardcover

$17.99 US

Candlewick

6-3/8"W x 8-1/8"H | 20 oz | 30 per carton

On sale Feb 04, 2025 | 96 Pages | 9781536201420

Age 5-9 years

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From the beloved author of the Judy Moody and Stink series comes the first in a sparkling series of chapter books about a girl whose love for magic and fairy folk takes her on enchanting adventures

Imagine a door.
A teeny-tiny fairy door.
Now imagine it is magic.
Open the door.

To some, the low door in Eliza’s bedroom might look like an ordinary entrance to a crawl space under the stairs. But to a believer like Eliza of the Elves, it’s the door to the Land of UnderStair, a secret hideout all her own. In that crawl space, festooned with twinkling lights, Eliza keeps her favorite book, her collections of precious items, her stuffed animals, and her new diary. And in that crawl space is another door, a teeny-tiny one that can transport Eliza to a world of tangerine sun and lemon-pudding sky, a place where flower fairies perch on every bloom and a new flower springs up whenever you pick one. But in a far corner of that world, Eliza tries to pick a strangely beautiful flower—“Nooooo!” cries her friend Poppy—and things soon go terribly awry. Can a brave, wilting Poppy rescue Eliza from beyond the hedgerow before the Demon Wind steals all the flower fairies’ scents, leaving the snapdragons with no snap? In this launch of a new series, Megan McDonald brings her well-honed flair for wordplay to delicious villains like the witches Wolfsbane and Belladonna as she follows a child with a big imagination to a different fairy realm in each book. Lenny Wen’s delightful, richly colored artwork brings Eliza’s world to life with fanciful details sure to have readers creating their own cozy retreats—and visiting magical lands beyond the door.

Megan McDonald is the author of the popular Judy Moody and Stink series for older readers, the Judy Moody and Friends series for beginning readers, and the first chapter book Bunny and Clyde. She has also written many other chapter books and picture books for children. Megan McDonald lives in California.

Lenny Wen is the illustrator of Smiling Eyes by Linda Sue Park, among other books, and the author-illustrator of Spicy Spicy Hot! and Wolfgang in the Meadow. Born in Indonesia, Lenny Wen now lives in Austria.

Megan McDonald View titles by Megan McDonald

Lenny Wen View titles by Lenny Wen

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Imagine a door.
A teeny-tiny fairy door.
Now imagine it is magic.

Open the door.

Chapter one
In Which a Door Is Opened

Eliza stepped off of School Bus Number Six and ran. She ran down the hill. She ran past the empty swing set. She ran past the red rowboat. She ran past a pot of purple flowers. She ran past the old dock until she reached the end of Salt Pond Lane.
She stopped to pick some wild daisies, poking their happy heads among the goldenrod and sneezeweeds.
She ran up the hill. At the top sat five crooked beach cottages, all in a row. Wind chimes made of clamshells rang as Eliza flew up the steps of Cottage Number Two and pushed open the screen door.
“Hi, Mom! Hi, Bee!” she yelled to her mother and her little sister. She didn’t wait for an answer. In fact, Eliza was in her room by the time the screen door banged shut behind her.
Eliza peeled off her school uniform and put on her play clothes. She clipped her dragonfly pin to her overalls.
Then she ducked inside the low, curved door in the bedroom wall. Cherry-pink light streamed through the half-moon window of the crawl space.
The door to the Land of UnderStair closed behind Eliza with a soft click. Magic is not loud. It is soft, like the fur on a rabbit. Or a whisper.
It was pin-drop quiet in her secret space under the stairs. No Mom insisting on chores. No Bee pestering her to play horsies.
She braided the daisies into a garland, placed it on her head, and lifted up The Daisy Chain Book of Fairies.
It was old, so old she felt the flip of a page might turn it to dust. The book contained all there was to know about fairies, elves, hobs, trolls, pixies, brownies, and every other kind of fae folk. She stroked its purple leather cover like she was petting a rabbit.
Eliza pulled her stuffed animals close. She cracked open The Daisy Chain Book of Fairies. “What shall we read today?” she asked Raccoon, Chipmunk, and Hedgehog.
Eliza thought she heard the animals whisper, “The flower fairies.”
“Once upon a time,” she started, “in a land as yellow as buttercups . . .”
When she was done, she closed the book and looked out the half-moon window.
“A rainbow!” she told her animals. “If I were a fairy, I’d wear skirts made of poppy petals and drink beads of dew from spiderwebs and fly over rainbows.”
When she looked outside again, her breath quickened. “A double rainbow!” It was a sign. Magic!
Eliza touched the dragonfly pin clipped to her overalls.
All was still.
All was quiet.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a hobgoblin.
She opened her new diary. It squeaked of possibility. On the first page she wrote: This Book belongs to Eliza of the Elves
She crawled over to the teeny-tiny fairy door that she’d made of sticks and star moss. A movement bothered the stillness. A flicker as small as the blink of an eyelash.
A wing! Eliza’s dragonfly pin lifted a wing right off of her overalls.
Haiku! Her dragonfly familiar. Haiku was Eliza’s friend and protector in the Land of the Fairies.
It was certain now.
She felt a draft. A good breeze. On the floor was a wisp of fine dust, the color of sea-green glitter.
All of a sudden, the teeny-tiny door flew open.

Fairy fans will find an enchanting new world.
—Kirkus Reviews

McDonald, author of the Judy Moody series, has created another wonderful series for early chapter-book readers in the Fairy Door Diaries. . . Wen’s illustrations, rendered in gouache and colored pencil, beautifully augment the tale’s enchanting nature. This gentle adventure will be embraced by little ones who know the world is full of magic.
—Booklist (starred review)

Lenny Wen utilizes radiantly colorful illustrations limned with intricate, foreshadowing detail to bring the fairies’ world to life in this joyful tale of learning to believe in oneself and rejoicing in magic both grandiose and mundane.
—Publishers Weekly

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