The Bear Fairy

Written by Paul Coccia
Illustrated by Fred Blunt
Tundra Books
978-1-77488-558-1 
40 pp.
Ages 3–7 

Releases February 17, 2026

 

Adorable is an adjective I usually use for puppies and kittens, beautiful babies, and sweet children. But now I can use it for bear fairies. Or, at least, the Bear Fairy of Paul Coccia's debut picture book. He may not be the dainty fairy of many tales, but he twinkles with his own brilliance.

From The Bear Fairy, written by Paul Coccia, illustrated by Fred Blunt

Spencer is a red-curled and bespectacled boy who is determined to catch a fairy. He constructs a fairy door in a tree, a daisy chain, and even a box-and-stick trap. His blue-haired friend Mariah is convinced that fairies are only attracted to beautiful little girls like her. 

Surprisingly, it's a littered potato chip bag that ultimately draws a fairy. More surprising is that it is a bear fairy with pink wings and wearing a pink dress. Though he wishes to leave—the chip bag is empty after all—Spencer convinces the Bear Fairy to stay so the boy can show him to Mariah. They spend a day of playing in the park, racing remote cars, and watching TV, with plenty of. snacks. The Bear Fairy may be lots of fun, but he also has his own quirks which Spencer must accommodate, like his tardiness when getting ready.

. . . I'm still sprucing up—

90 percent of being a fairy 

is in the looks, you know. 

It's not all magic dust and 

fluttering around! (pg. 25)

From The Bear Fairy, written by Paul Coccia, illustrated by Fred Blunt

 But when Spencer presents the Bear Fairy to Mariah, herself festooned in a pink dress with pink wings, the girl declares that he's not any of the things expected of a fairy. Worse, she insists emphatically that he's a crummy old fairy because he's pudgy, hairy, and not beautiful.

From The Bear Fairy, written by Paul Coccia, illustrated by Fred Blunt

Spencer will not allow her to slander his fairy and defends the Bear Fairy as the perfect fairy he is.

 

Paul Coccia has a knack for giving us important stories, but always with a lightness that helps soften less than fortunate circumstances. However, his earlier books have all be been for middle grade readers (e.g., On the Line [written with Eric Walters], 2022; I Got You Babe, 2023; Leon Levels Up, 2024) and young adult novels (e.g., Cub, 2019; The Player, 2021; Recommended Reading, 2025). Now, young readers, and those who read to them, can experience that same mastery in storytelling with The Bear Fairy. Not only do we get a story of stereotypes—yes, there are fairy stereotypes—and accepting others as they are, we get humour, cheeky puns, and adorableness. Paul Coccia has given the Bear Fairy, Spencer, and Mariah voices that make them true in their characters. They offer hope that all may be accepted, eventually.

From The Bear Fairy, written by Paul Coccia, illustrated by Fred Blunt

Fred Blunt, a Welsh illustrator, must have a touch of the whimsy himself judging by the art credit that identifies his work as created "with cheap paper, pencils, tatty brushes, ink and a computer." His materials may be downplayed, but his art is nothing but lofty and animated like the Bear  Fairy himself. Fred Blunt keeps the bear fairy cheeky, while Spencer and Mariah are both ordinary and off-the-wall, and creates upbeat landscapes both indoors and outside. There's the colour of wonder, and the lines and shapes of jocularity and fun.

 

I'm glad I met the Bear Fairy, just as Spencer surely is. So what if his fairy is pudgy and hairy? He's also fluffy and cuddly and beautiful. (Those are Spencer's assertions, and I concur.) He's perfect just as he is. And I thank Paul Coccia for introducing us to the Bear Fairy who exemplifies all of us. We are as we are, sometimes seen as the best and sometimes seen as less than perfect. And if we don't fit some stereotype because of our gender, age, appearance, or abilities, then that's on those who reinforce those impressions. We're perfect for those who accept us as we are.

The Tallest Tree House

Written and illustrated by Elly MacKay

Running Press Kids

978-0-7624-6299-5

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

April 2019

Mip, the red mushroom-capped fairy, is a true kinesthete. She's always on the move, singing, flying and building. Her impetuousness has her challenging Pip, her book-loving, contemplative fairy friend to a tree house race after she sees him reading a book on architecture.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay

Mip is all at it immediately, determined to make the tallest tree house ever and by sundown. Pip, on the other hand, sits on his rock among the Trillium, Erythronium and Aquilegia, and plans his build with precision and thoughtfulness.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay

Slowly the two tree houses start to take shape, as Mip frantically and rather haphazardly builds and builds while Pip slowly but methodically creates his own.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay

When "Gusts of wind send sprays of mist over the rocks" and "The leaves began to dance," Pip suggests Mip secure her tower. Of course Mip sees this as a ploy to slow her down and continues building. But when the wind and rain topple her tower into Pip's tree house and traps his wing, Mip comes to the rescue. Then, after the storm has passed, the two work together on a new tree house that incorporates both their structures into "a winning piece of architecture."

As her website's name and Twitter handle can attest, Elly MacKay truly creates theatre in the clouds. Through a laborious process that may appear to be like play–see full details at her website here–Elly MacKay blends inked figures and other structures cut from paper into a theatre in which she can manipulate the layers and lighting. It's a stunning blend of two-dimensional creations with three dimensions. Children are fascinated by the textures that come from her artwork and have been charmed by it in her picture books from If You Hold a Seed (Running Press, 2013) to her latter works including Butterfly Park (Running Press, 2015) and Red Sky at Night (Tundra, 2018). Couple that art with fairies and a competition that transforms into cooperation and partnership and The Tallest Tree House becomes a winner for all readers.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay

Wicked Nix

Written by Lena Coakley

Illustrated by Jaime Zollars

HarperCollins Canada

978-1-443454698

163 pp.

Ages 8-12

October 2018

Wicked Nix is the foulest of fairies who lives in the forest in a nest in the old oak tree, ever since the Good Queen and all the other fairies left last Midsummer's Eve for the Summer Country.  Wicked Nix has learned to survive through some help from Mr. Green, a forest entity (or a figment of Nix's imagination?) and a little girl-people, Rose the Wise, who is not repulsed by Nix's looks. The gifts the villagers leave out, like a bit of cheese or honeycomb, to appease the fairies also help.

But now a man-people has shown up at the cottage in the forest and Wicked Nix is not happy.

I can smell him, or at least I think I can. Like all peoples, he smells like soap and taking baths and eating with a fork. Horrible. (pg. 3)

Anticipating the return of the Good Queen and knowing the presence of the man-people will displease her, Wicked Nix looks for ways to frighten the man-people away. But, unlike the other fairies, Nix has no magic and the man-people figures out the tricks used to drive him away and uses his own, including salt, iron and daisies, to keep the fairies at bay. Will Wicked Nix be successful in getting rid of the intruder or will the intruder succeed in making a home of the abandoned cottage in the fairy wood?

Lena Coakley has always spun a great YA fantasy tale (Witchlanders, 2011; Worlds of Ink and Shadow, 2016) but, with Wicked Nix, she's proven that she can write really great middle grade fiction. While Wicked Nix does not contain the angst we anticipate in YA fiction–because life becomes more complicated as you get older, doesn't it?–it delves into the worries of young readers: freedom to choose, belonging, and being loved. Wicked Nix may well be a tale of fantasy with its fairies and magic but at its roots it's a story of abandonment, home and finding connectedness, sometimes where least expected. It's also about perspective, both Nix's and the reader's, and seeing beyond the established and being open to the unexpected. And Lena Coakley has such a gentle touch with the voice of Nix and Rose and others that it's easy to empathize with their plights.

I'm sure she did not forget me, though. I'm sure she loves me. She once pulled a star down from the sky for me–that's how I know. She must have left me here to protect the forest. She must have left me here because she trusts me more than all of the others. (pg. 32)

While I encourage all readers to take the path through Wicked Nix's woods (follow Jaime Zollars's map at the beginning of the book), be sure stick to the road meant for people. Otherwise, there may be some nasty surprises in store for you and you wouldn't want to be taken by the fairies, since Nix probably won't be able to help you out.

Spirited Away: Fairy Stories of Old Newfoundland

Written by Tom Dawe

Illustrated by Veselina Tomova

Running the Goat, Books & Broadsides Inc.

978-1-927917-13-8

60 pp.

Ages 9+

October 2017

If the cover of Spirited Away leaves you with a feeling of dark and foreboding forces at play, then artist Veselina Tomova has done her job admirably because the stories that Tom Dawe recounts from family members and others about the nefarious fairies of old Newfoundland are truly spooky and frightening, if they are to be believed.  Tom Dawe and those who tell and listen believe, and so do I.

From Spirited Away 

by Tom Dawe

 illus. by Veselina Tomova

Nine stories, addended with a glossary and notes about each story's derivation, recall stories of children, a war bride, a visiting nurse, grandmothers and more as they were touched by fairies or were witness to such encounters.  In the first story In a Place Like This, a girl recalls an abandoned house near a pool where her grandfather gathered eels.  She'd heard the warnings of it being a place of spirits and evil fairies and the tales of a man in green dancing upon the house's door ledge.  But her story relates to evil done to the baby sister she watched over as her family cut hay in the adjacent fields.  Only the baby and a green butterfly know how her arm was broken as she lay on a blanket.

Paddy the Hermit, called the Music Man, often told scary stories but they became reality when walking home he is encircled by a group of little fairies who put a spell on him to play his harmonica until he collapses.

From Spirited Away 

by Tom Dawe

 illus. by Veselina Tomova

In several stories, people seek shelter inside at night when fairies seek to harm them outside.  In The Marsh, floating lights, said to portend death, follow two young men on their return from a dance.  Only shelter in a church all night with the light hoovering outside kept the men safe. Where Water Ran the Other Way tells of trapper Solomon finds refuge in a small cabin when caught at dusk.  Though feeling compelled to open the door to those calling him, he wills himself not to listen or look out the windows at the strange goings-on.

There's the story of The Fairy Funeral, Bones and Fallen Angels (from which the cover illustration is derived)  but the other two most compelling stories for me were Spirited Away and The Changeling.  In Spirited Away, a grandmother disappears from a family outing of blueberry-picking.  She recalls being lured deep into the forest by drumming and hours later being found but without memory of her extraordinary walk including the crossing of major rivers. The Changeling is perhaps the most disturbing.  It is the story of a visiting nurse called in the night to the home where less than two months earlier little Gracie was born.  Fearing the only child of John and Sally was ill, she discovers a mother declaring that there was something in the crib but not her child.

Finally, I found the courage to approach the crib. I pulled back the sheet.  And then, God protect us all! I'll never forget the sight. (pg. 46)

It's a chilling story of fairies taking babies and leaving something in its place but it's the certainty of what that nurse saw that was the most compelling.

I know what I saw.  And I know what happened.  John and Sally lost their only child. And that night in an outport years ago, I witnessed an evil transformation.  Something ugly and strange was left in the cot where Gracie was supposed to be. (pg. 49)

Tom Dawe tells some disturbing stories in Spirited Away, enhancing the atmosphere with the flavour of Newfoundland and coastal Labrador.  From the music to blueberry picking and the vocabulary much unknown to me (you may not need to look up duckish, emper, fetch, livyers and herts but I did), these are the stories of the people of Newfoundland.  Veselina Tomova's woodcut illustrations, in dark tones and snatches of light, reflect the very settings in which the fairies appear.  These are not your Disney fairies.  These are frightening, and Tom Dawe ensures that we know that they are real.

From Spirited Away 

by Tom Dawe 

illus. by Veselina Tomova