Review: How to Catch a Garden Fairy by Alice Walstead

Genre: Children's 4-8

Published: March 28, 2023

Pages: 40

From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling How to Catch series comes a new springtime adventure―do YOU have the magic touch needed to catch a Garden Fairy?

When the Catch Club Kids stumble upon a trail of glitter and the entrance to an enchanted garden, they decide that they have to explore! Hoping to find the resident Garden Fairy to learn about her magical realm, our heroes set off on a whirlwind adventure through this larger-than-life garden. Young readers, parents, and educators alike will laugh along as the Garden Fairy dodges ridiculous STEAM traps and hilarious plans, and even interacts with some surprise How to Catch friends!

Perfect for kids ages 4-10, this funny picture book makes a delightful classroom, summertime, or bedtime read-aloud, Easter basket stuffer, and graduation or birthday gift!

In the garden lives a legend filled with magic, wit, and fun,

So grab your friends and set your traps, and catch this fairy before the day's done!

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review. 

This is a rhyming book that I wish didn't. The linguistic gymnastics required to make the rhymes work make the story flow feel very clunky. Some of the sentence structure was akin to Yoda speak, but that wasn't consistently applied throughout the story. 

The story itself would have been quite fun if I hadn't been stumbling over the clunky sentence structure. Talk of lunch with a mermaid and turning zebra stripes fun colors and having a pet unicorn is delightful, but the fun got lost in the poor sentence structure. 

The illustrations were great. They were so bright and colorful with a ton of little details to enhance the story. if it weren't for the syntax issues, I would not mind reading this book several times. As it stands now I wouldn't want to though. 

Overall I give this book 3.1 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

Alice Walstead is a children’s book author who loves to make kids smile with her stories.

Andy Elkerton is a children’s book illustrator who loves to create creatures that are impossible to catch! He is known for his work on the New York Times bestselling How to Catch series and is based in the United Kingdom.