A delightful middle-grade fantasy, set on the Isle of Skye and featuring eight full-page illustrations (including a map).
The Ban the Witches and Fairies (BW&F) Party has chased all the supernatural beings out of the Isle of Skye. Only Magaidh, a young witch, remains, hiding in a castle disguised as a cat. But she and the Queen of the Fairies have a plan to rescue the Fairy Flag, allowing the fairies and Magaidh to return to Skye. As Magaidh resumes her business, Spells, Inc., she thinks about getting revenge on the BW&F Party, but the Fairy Queen suggests that peace would be a better plan. While Magaidh considers which it will be, peace or revenge, her business allows her to help the people of Skye with love potions and spells to reverse the troublesome effects of fairy arrows. She and her two fairy friends, Sean and Iain, go on many adventures together, including rescuing a baby Welsh dragon; dealing with Big Blue Donald, a ghost; and befriending a baby water horse. In the process, Magaidh gets to know her father and finds out why she is different from her siblings, who force her to choose revenge!
This gentle, rollicking tale is steeped in the folklore and culture of the Isle of Skye and incorporates Gaelic names and phrases. A glossary at the beginning of the book (titled "A Reader's Guide to the Magical World of Skye") provides a pronunciation guide for the non-English words. In addition to the fantasy elements, the novel is also about family. Magaidh discovers that she is only half-supernatural; she is surprised to learn that her birth father is not only a human, but a leader of the BW&F Party. Nonetheless, she seeks him out and hopes to establish a relationship with him; he is open to connecting with her, but they meet with resistance from his other children. The story is a lesson in tolerance and acceptance.
Gales, Elizabeth M.: - Elizabeth M. Gales lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After spending the last twenty years working with seniors, creating programs and day-to-day activities that utilized art, music, and dance, she decided to retire early to give herself the opportunity to work on projects that have been on the back burner for far too long. Over the last decades she has taken many workshops through community colleges, the University of British Columbia, as well as Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver where she was accepted in to their fine arts program, almost completing her first year there before life sent her in another direction. Many years later life once again set her adrift. A move from BC to Nova Scotia was a way to reinvent herself and become the person she has dreamed of being since her earliest memories. Workshops offered by the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) helped her continue her artist journey. Along with writing and illustrating, Elizabeth loves gardening, walks by the ocean, the wind, and cold cozy sweater weather. Her illustrations utilize pen and ink, coloured ink, watercolour, and acrylic as well as digital art. Learn more about Elizabeth on her website at www.elizabethmgales.com/.
Nicolson, Carolyn J.: - Carolyn Jean Nicholson was born in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, worked in the health information management field, taught in post-secondary education, and was in ministry in The United Church of Canada. After her retirement, she began researching her ancestors; after many years she discovered her Nicolson ancestors were from the Isle of Skye in the Scottish Highlands, and she began to visit Skye with her sisters. Skye, she learned, was always full of fairies, witches, water monsters, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures. As a project for her small writers' group, she wrote a 1,200-word story about fairies, witches, etc., then decided to play some more with what she had written. In time, this became a larger and larger story. Carolyn decided to take a course offered by the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia on how to write a children's story. Then, daring to believe the story might be worth publishing, she contacted OC Publishing and the rest, as they say, is history.Wishes sometimes do come true, and Carolyn's wish would be that this little story might bring happiness and pleasure to children and that they might come to love little Magaidh and her friends and family as much as she does.
