Book Review - How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

How to Ditch Your Fairy is set in the future city of New Avalon, Australia where many people have invisible fairies who give them certain skills, types of luck, or in some cases a great number of difficulties.  This is the story of Charlie, a sports lover, who is unlucky enough to have a parking fairy.  This means if Charlie's in a car it'll find the best parking spot no matter how busy the place.  She's always being called upon to help her mom, dad, and their friends or being kidnapped by fellow student Danders so he can do his shady business without worrying about finding a good parking spot for a quick get away.  

Charlie absolutely hates her fairy and spends most of the book trying to get rid of it so she can, hopefully, get a cool fairy, like her friend Rochelle's clothes shopping fairy.  Over the course of  the story Charlie makes a new friend in Fiorenze, deals with the ups and downs of first love, learns a bit about fairness, and spends as much time as she can becoming the best athlete possible.  

How to Ditch Your Fairy is written in first person, rather like it's Charlies diary.  I'm not the biggest fan of first person, but I got over my dislike of the tense by the end of the first chapter.   Charlie's a very focused character, her main concerns are sports and how her parking fairy is ruining her chances of being a great athlete.  This makes it very easy for the reader to enter into Charlie's mind and care about the same things she does.  However, it also means Charlie doesn't spend much time questioning the way things are and she can be throughtless and even a little cruel at times because Charlie doesn't spend much time trying to see things from other people's points of view.  This means she doesn't question her dislike of Fiorenze until she's forced to spend time with her and circumstances put Charlie in Fiorenze's shoes.  Likewise, she has a crush on Steffi, a new student, but doesn't try to get to know about him before he moved to New Avalon until he calls her on her self-centeredness.  However, by the end of the book Charlie's gotten a lot better at thinking about other people and what's important to them.

One thing I loved about this book is how Larbalestier shows the relationship between Charlie and Fiorenze.  Fiorenze is cursed with an All the Boys Like You Fairy and it makes Charlie and a bunch of other girls really resent Fiorenze and treat her horribly.  Over the course of the story Charlie realizes how unfair this all is and becomes good friends with Fiorenze.  I think this is very applicable to real life.  I see so many girls and women treat each other horribly because of men. So often you see stories, in songs, TV, movies, and books where the guy the female protagonist is into likes another girl and this means that other girl is a horrible person.  I hate these types of stories and what it teaches young girls, so I was so excited that How to Ditch Your Fairy shows the exact opposite.

One area I was disappointed in was Charlie's relationship with fairies.  The set up of the story seems like Charlie should be learning about how fairies can give people unfair advantages and that it's better to succeed on your own talents and hard work.  Other characters learn this lesson, they're worried about the consequences of what they're fairies get them.  However, even at the end of the book Charlie still wants a cool fairy and is really excited about the one she ultimately gets, even though it dimishes her personal hard work and success. 

So if you want to give your child or student a book about keeping an open mind, the importance of family and friendship, or how we should be considerate of other people and their wants and needs this is a great book.  If you want to teach a lesson about hard work and perseverance, be prepared to talk about Charlie's fairy obsession and her societies reliance on fairies to make things easier.

This book identifies as Young Adult and content wise it is better suited for 12 and older children.  At times it's necessary to think critically about Charlie's opinions and actions and most elementary school children will have a harder time considering this and making judgements.  Reading skills wise, this book can be used to help children work on learning the meaning of words through context.  It is set in an imaginary city in the future so the characters use slang that doesn't exist in the real world.  All of the words are included in a glossary in the back of the book, so even if kids can't guess an accurate meaning they don't have to spend much time looking for the answer.

The books Reading Level, and even the content of crushes, friendships, and getting on a sports team, can be managed by somewhat younger children.  Some of my forth graders are reading this book and enjoying it.  As long as people are Self Extending Readers they can manage the words and content of this book. (More on Reading Levels) I think How to Ditch Your Fairy is a book that sparks conversation so I definately would recommend it for a book club.