Thank you for responding to my ad post. Let me tell you about the Finding Fairyland book series.
Two years ago, I was challenged with the task of writing a story about my friend’s daughter and her desire to go to Fairyland. This story was to be about her real-life daughter Julia and her real-life friend McKenna. It featured other real people and some imagined fae folk including the local bookseller, the Bookman, and a wood sprite named Jennall. Julia’s mother set me to a strange task: create an adventure that is not scary or dark but is positive and fun and says something. Make it a story she could read to her daughters before bed and which would send them off to sleep with a smile on their faces. That story became Finding Fairyland. Julia named it and her mother shared the story with friends and family — and both kids and adults enjoyed reading it.
After finishing the first book, I figured I had better write one that featured an adventure for Julia’s sister Laura. Finding Fairyland 2: Laura’s Turn recounts the older girl’s attempt to find her own path into fairyland. In this book, her mother, the Bookman, Jennall and some elves help Laura on her quest.
When that book was done, we decided to publish them. We used a Michigan-based company called OMNI Book Publishing to put the book together and print it. We were very happy with the results: durable books; good, long-lasting paper and easy to read text; and fantastic cover artwork that complements the stories. I included a few quirky things to add to the fun of the books.
Since then we’ve published Finding Fairyland 3: Spring Beauties in which the sisters are accompanied by their friends on an adventure in Fairyland. This book starts a little bit darker — but everything works out long before the end. As I said, these are meant to be entertaining, not frightening.
Each story so far has happened at a “turning” point in the year: Julia and McKenna visit Fairyland at the Autumn Equinox in Finding Fairyland; Laura attends a very special celebration at the Winter Solstice in Finding Fairyland 2: Laura’s Turn; and all the girls visit the Otherworld at the Spring Equinox in Finding Fairyland 3: Spring Beauties. There are currently two more books projected in the series: book 4 happens at the Summer Solstice and book 5 at Midsummer. (You’ll have to wait until you read book 5 to understand why!)
Each book also features a few hidden (or not so hidden) references to other books and to each other — the series is meant to be read from the beginning on — which makes them as entertaining for adults to read as children. There’s nothing worse than having to suffer through a boring story at bedtime just because it’s a “kid’s book.” Most of my readers so far have been adults — many without young children to read to even!
If these sound interesting to you, or you know the perfect little girl who would love to read these adventures, please order the books. You can contact me by email (poupardetc@aol.com) or go to omnibookpublishing.com and order them from there. Each paperback book sells for $11.95 — which is a great deal if you consider the hours you and your child or grandchild will spend enjoying the stories. I’m not going to offer any sort of money-back guarantee — because I think that once you start visiting Fairyland with Julia and Laura, you’ll want to go back again.
I’ve had fun writing these stories and I know that there are many hundreds, maybe thousands, of children and adults out there who will enjoy reading them. Help me find them.
Thank you,
Barry Poupard
