Dear Fairy Godmother

I really wanted to love this book. My admiration for both Michael Rosen and Nick Sharratt is boundless, but in this case, I don’t think the partnership works. They have taken fairy tales and made them into ‘problems’ that can be solved by a Fairy Godmother agony aunt. So, the Gingerbread Man writes to ask how he can stop people from trying to eat him, and the answer is that he should use strong aftershave as the pong will put them off. The Three Little Pigs are afraid to leave their nice brick house, so the Fairy Godmother advises that they drive around in a huge, tank-like people carrier. And so it goes. It is clever and often funny in a rather contrived way, but the main problem is that while the text seems to be aimed at older children and includes irony and the unexpected, the illustrations with their flaps to lift are for younger children. There is a mismatch here that just doesn’t work. The concept of combining fairy tales with modern ‘with it’ ideas seems suspect and wrong-headed to this reviewer. Having said that, kids may well love it.