How To See Fairies

Charles van Sandwyk's book How to See Fairies opens with a preface stating, "strangely enough I had no objectionable grown-ups hovering around trying to convince me that fairies are real. It was up to me to convince them...When you come to realize Fairies exist, you appreciate life so much better." Given Charles's predilection for fairies it seemed fitting to bring his book out for a summer's eve reading under a blooming hawthorn tree, to share his charming stories and illustrations with the fairies that pass through this region. Hawthorns after all are known as fairy trees. Now, fairies and gnomes and clever little bees carrying enchanted keys are easy to dismiss, especially if you have never seen them, but believing in them adds a bit of mystery and sparkle to the world. Like Charles van Sandwyk said, very few people will go around trying to convince you to believe in fairies. Rather the opposite is true. People are only too quick to stomp on your childhood dreams and turn the mysterious into the mundane. But believing in fairies transforms a simple flowering hedgerow tree into a fairy meeting place. Believing asks you to look at the world in wonder; to appreciate the banal a bit more and find enchantment in the ordinary...