PHILIPPA FISHER’S FAIRY GODSISTER

With her best friend moving away and her quirky parents embarrassing her to no end—their camper-van honks to the tune of the Hokey-Pokey—11-year-old Philippa Fisher wishes she had a fairy godmother to change everything about her. Overnight, a daisy she has plucked is transformed into a surly new girl in class, fairy-godsister Daisy French, who grants Philippa three wishes that prove to make her life even more unpleasant than it was. Kessler, author of the Emily Windsnap series, gives Daisy a winningly irascible temperament (indeed, like a put-upon older sister), bent on fulfilling her “assignment” as dictated by the higher-ups at ATC (Above the Clouds). While it is Daisy’s job to show compassion for the mousy protagonist, Philippa needs to learn that she never had it so good before she turned her free-spirited, affectionate parents into goal-driven, homework-mad conventional drones. Told in the alternating voices of Philippa and Daisy, the tale unfolds with an appealing mixture of tenderness and irony. (Fantasy. 8-12)