The Fairy Ring

February 6, 2012
In 1920, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published photographs in the widely read Strand magazine that he believed proved the existence of fairies. The pictures had been taken a few years earlier by two cousins, nine-year-old Frances Griffiths and 15-year-old Elsie Wright. Tired of adults teasing them about Frances seeing fairies, Elsie borrowed her father’s camera and produced photos showing the girls interacting with dainty winged creatures in the valley behind Elsie’s house. After experts declared the pictures genuine and Conan Doyle’s article appeared, it wasn’t long before events spiraled out of control and led to a myth that lasted more than 60 years. Losure’s first book for children details the events that led the girls to their fame and adds the personal recollections of those involved from their own later writings. Accompanied by the famous photos, the story is written in an accessible narrative style that includes the attitudes of the time and explains historical items like the use of hatpins and how cameras of the period worked. An intriguing glimpse into a photo-doctoring scandal well before the advent of Photoshop. Ages 10–up. (Mar.)■

January 1, 2012
The remarkable, true story of a fairy hoax successfully perpetrated by two young girls in the early 1900s offers a fascinating examination of human nature. It began innocently enough; cousins Frances, 9, and Elsie, 15, took pictures of cutout paper fairies in order to get their families to stop teasing Frances, who claimed to have seen real ones in the woods behind their house. It escalated when Elsie's mother mentioned at a Theosophist meeting that her daughter had taken a picture of fairies, perhaps not anticipating the ensuing furor. Eventually, a number of otherwise intelligent adults came to believe these photos were real, most prominent among them Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It's an incredible story, but this compelling account explains step-by-step how the situation escalated; as time went on, more people became personally and financially invested, and it was increasingly difficult for the girls to consider coming clean. The narrative is matter-of-fact and reserves judgment on the perpetrators as well as their credulous public. The fairy photos are reproduced, allowing readers to see exactly what people at the time saw. This addition to the pantheon of great hoaxes, such as The War of the Worlds Halloween broadcast, reveals a perpetual human fascination with the supernatural and a strong desire to believe in the unseen. (Nonfiction. 10-14)

(COPYRIGHT (2012) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from March 1, 2012
Grades 5-8 *Starred Review* Frances Griffiths is nine in 1917, the year she goes to live in Cottingley, England. There she strikes up a steadfast friendship with her 15-year-old cousin, Elsie, a spirited high-school dropout whose artistic aspirations are being squashed by desultory factory jobs. One day, on a lark, the girls stroll down to the waterfall behind the house, mount some of Elsie's fairy paintings to sticks, and pose with them for a few pictures. The resulting sequence of events changes their lives forever: the random discovery of the photos by Theosophists (an organization that believes in nature spirits), the validation of authenticity by photo experts, and the enthusiasm of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After all, how could two working-class country girls pull off a hoax this convincing? Losure's elegant and charmingly formal prose (all the men are Mr. ) makes palpable the girls' loss of control as their fame spirals ever wider. The communicable hysteria has a Salem Witchlike feel: so many people want to believe, none more tragically than Doyle. Frances and Elsie keep their secret until they are elderly, but their lie is not based in fooleryfor them, it is the bond of friendship that is magical. The photos themselves are included and, like the astonishing true story, they are simultaneously silly and haunting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

Starred review from March 1, 2012
The yearning for the supernatural and the magical to be real seems timeless. In the early years of the twentieth century it was fairies that intrigued, especially those in a handful of photographs made by two girls in England. Word of the photographs spread quickly, causing Arthur Conan Doyle and others to feel that they proved the existence of fairies once and for all. Losure has written an engaging account of the affair, focusing sympathetically on the two young photographers, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright. Beginning with Frances's move from South Africa to the village of Cottingley, where she shared a bedroom with her cousin Elsie, Losure provides a straightforward narrative that gives young readers a sense of the girls' different personalities (Elsie "loved a good laugh, she loved to paint, and she didn't like being teased"; Frances was a solitary observer of nature); the girls' daily life in WWI Yorkshire; and the type of small events (a father's teasing) that may well have provoked them to stage the photographs. She goes on to report what happened when they grew up, especially how they responded when the story periodically resurfaced in the media. Losure has done her research -- studying the photographs (reproduced here) themselves, reading all the relevant publications, and, most importantly, digging deep into primary source material, including letters, interviews, and Frances's autobiography. Fine source notes and a bibliography are included. monica edinger

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2012
Losure has written a well-researched and engaging account of what happened when Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright, two young cousins in early twentieth century England, staged some photographs of fairies (reproduced here). Focusing sympathetically on the girls, the straightforward narrative goes on to report how they responded as adults when the story periodically resurfaced in the media. Bib., ind.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from May 1, 2012

Gr 4-8-Fairy Ring recounts the story of cousins Elsie Wright, 15, and Frances Griffiths, 9, who lived in Cottingley, Yorkshire, England, during World War I. The girls, using Elsie's dad's camera and painted paper cutouts, staged photographs of fairies that they claimed to see near the stream behind their house. The book does a lovely job of portraying the youngsters in a well-rounded way; Losure does not shy away from clearly stating that they lied, but also takes time to demonstrate their motivations behind creating (and sustaining) the hoax. The characters of Mr. Edward Gardner, a member of the Theosophical Society, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle provide an interesting glimpse into the mystical ideas that were de rigueur in the 1900s, and the role that intense desire for something to be true can have in swaying our beliefs. The inclusion of the actual photographs and correspondences between the two girls and the two men who wished to prove to the world that fairies exist add depth and reality to the story. This is well-written nonfiction that reads like a novel; former fans and secret believers of fairy stories will thoroughly enjoy this account of how two girls fooled the world.-Nicole Waskie-Laura, Chenango Forks Elementary, Binghamton, NY

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