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The Fairy Ring or Elsie and Frances Fool the World

By Mary Losure

This is the charming story of a little girl who sees fairies. However, her mother and her aunt and uncle don't believe her. Her cousin Elsie does. So they make a couple of paper cut outs of pained fairies (Elsie's an artist). It follows the story of the pair as the pictures they took took with their 'fairies' are taken too seriously. Several important people including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, believed in fairies and at that period in time, people wanted to try and prove the existence of fairies. As the whole deal got more and more out of control, they get really guilty and don't like the direction their joke went in.

It was a really interesting book overall. I would not have imagined that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have believed in fairies. Also, I thought it interesting that scientists wanted to classify fairies into a species and such and document them. I think that this book should get a 3.5 or something about that. It was good and a very quick read, but I had trouble keeping track of all the names and the amount of time passing. In terms of food, it would be some food you don't really like, but then you eat it and it isn't half bad.
 This is the first picture Elsie and Frances took of the 'fairies'. It depicts Frances and some of the fairies.
 This is Elsie in their second picture. She is with a gnome with wings.
 The third picture they took. This is a couple years later after everyone took an interest with them and their 'fairies'. This is Elsie with a flying fairy, offering her a bouquet of flowers.
 This is the fourth, and last posed picture they took, depicting Frances and a leaping fairy.
The last picture they took. According to the book, they just thought it was a jumble of grasses. However, some person who was studying fairies scientifically was convinced it was a fairy home thing, after seeing the fairy shapes. Frances apparently stood by this picture as being real for her whole life.

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