Rewards and Fairies Review

Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling is the second book in his middle grade fantasy duology. Brother and sister, Dan and Una, are friends with the fairy creature Puck. Because of this, Puck allows them to meet a number of people from many different eras and hear their stories (both historical and magical), giving them a unique view of British history.

I gave this book a 2 out of 5 stars. I did not like it. The format of the book is such that each chapter is like its own short story (Una, Dan, and Puck being the only elements that connect them together). There isn’t really any overarching plot line. I found this very frustrating. I am quite a plot driven reader, so this made me feel like I had to plough through the book one horribly slow inch at a time. I did enjoy the poems that came between each chapter, but those really were the highlights of the book for me.

Because the stories kept changing we had very few characters carrying through and little time to get to know most of them (therefore, limited character development). I felt some characters had high potential but no opportunity to reach it and a lot of them just fell flat. Even Una, Dan, and Puck didn’t really grow because each story took the focus off of them. Furthermore, the content of the short stories wasn’t gripping enough to keep my interest.

It did provide an interesting perspective of British history, but (not being British) I can’t really tell how much is real and how much is fantasy added. Some parts are clearly make believe, but I am sure he has also built onto some real events and such. I might be able to appreciate it more if I knew more about the history of Britain. 

Overall this book did absolutely nothing for me. It was slow and boring and sometimes quite painful to work my way through.