PHILIPPA FISHER AND THE FAIRY'S PROMISE
From the Philippa Fisher series, volume 3
by Liz Kessler & illustrated by Katie May
The power of friendship bucks the rules and regulations of the Above the Clouds command center—ATC for short—in this convoluted third installment in Kessler’s airy series exploring the gateway between the fairy and human worlds. Daisy, the shape-changing sprite of Philippa Fisher’s Fairy Godsister (2008), has gleaned insider information that her human friend Philippa’s mother is about to undergo a terrible accident and sends messages to warn the girl—a strictly prohibited intervention. Philippa and her family again happen to be vacationing near her friend Robyn’s home, and the girls receive Daisy’s alarming message at a fairy “portal” stone circle called Tidehill Rocks. Thanks to Daisy, the mom crisis quietly dissipates, and, with shifting POVs, Philippa and Daisy subsequently set out on a cockamamie search for a stone fairy, stolen from the circle, in order to reestablish a lost harmony between the two worlds. Overall, this outing gets bogged down in technical details of fairy-human interaction (the acronyms alone!), and the tune of tightly knit friendships sounds with tedious regularity. Young, bullied Tommy, however, is a new character with some future. (Fantasy. 8-12)