Part of the stimulating Rita Wants series that sees an imaginative little girl figure out life’s dilemmas for herself, Márie Zepf’s Rita Wants a Fairy Godmother is great to read to together to spark discussion of the scenarios Rita finds herself in - scenarios many a toddler will relate to, with Mr Ando’s illustrations offering exuberant entertainment, and extra talking points.
So many toddlers will identify with Rita at the beginning of the book - she “is still not dressed”. If only Rita had her very own Fairy Godmother, someone whose twirl of a wand could magically transform her into a dressed state! Rita then realises having her own Fairy Godmother would also mean Mum would never have to tell her to hurry, and she’d have “the most beautiful clothes in the world”. But, as Rita’s imaginative brain keeps whirring, she begins to wonder about the downsides - what if the Fairy Godmother made her “too fancy”? What if she gave her the wrong clothes (cue some hilarious illustrations)? What if she thought Rita could never be messy? On balance, Rita decides it would be better to dress herself after all.
Meet Rita. She’s a little girl with very big ideas. When she doesn’t feel like getting dressed in the morning, she dreams up a Fairy Godmother to help her out. Rita’s Fairy Godmother would only have to twirl her wand -swoosh! - and things would happen. But who knows what things...
Máire Zepf has written 12 books for children, from picture books to a YA verse novel. Winner of the KPMG Children’s Book of the Year, the Réics Carló Award and a White Raven in 2020, her books appear in 8 languages worldwide. The Co. Down author was the first Children’s Writing Fellow for Northern Ireland, based at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at QUB (2017-19). She is Artistic Director for Quotidian - Word on the Street.
About her series, Máire said, ‘Rita is a little girl with VERY big ideas. She has lots of adventures coming up in which she dreams up fantastical solutions to ordinary problems, often with hilarious results! Each book is based around a different character and centres on a new theme. There will be robots and dragons, ninjas, genies and a fairy godmother who will help her explore notions from fairness and order to the genderisation of clothing and emotional regulation.’
