***who sucked me in***
Beautiful Books on YouTube in their
40 Most Beautiful Books of 2020 | A Holiday Gift Guide video published on wo 2 Dec. 2020

But the books can also be found on their website: https://beautifulbooks.info/2020/12/most-beautiful-books-of-2020-a-holiday-gift-...

***Reason why I want to read it***
I have loved fairies since a child. My mom would point out trees that grew a certain way that it looked like it had a door. And sometimes some of the trees had furniture outside the 'door' (seriously thank you people who do this!). Also if mushrooms grew in a certain pattern she would tell us that leprechauns would dine there. My mom is very level-headed so I would kinda believe her when she told this.
Which is weird because I heard those kind of stories only after I was 8.

It was from that age I also began reading the old 'classic' fairy tales. Those from German, Scotland and Ireland. As a kid who grew up with comics and cartoons about superheroes, the fairy tales gave me the same feeling. Both terrifying. Both had some moral components to them. Both let me escape.

But the fairy tales never had people who looked like me or my mum (no not my mom). They had tigers, lions, dragons but every time someone looked like my mum the were called or portrayed as 'savage'. Which fine, historical perspective and all, still I'm glad that my mom also got fairy tales books which included tales from different countries, religions and cultures.

So when I saw the first few pages of A Natural History of Fairies it drew me in because it looked gorgeous but I also scoffed. Of course it had tigers and lions but only light-skinned fairies... UNTIL SHE FLIPPED THE PAGES!

First a saw a somewhat darker-skinned fairy and yes my first thought was: "Oh that's actually nice to include someone who actually looks somewhat like a person from India. Still a token effort though." OEH BOY I WAS WRONG.

A fairy with a big ass 'fro. I'm not ashamed to admit that I teared up. Even writing this I'm tearing up. Child-me wouldn't get this, but Adult-Me couldn't be any more delighted.

What most people don't seem to get when they are asking why representation matters is this: if you include animals from all over the world but still pair them up with light-skinned people you willfully ignore the people who actually live next to these animals. You imply something and to me that is:

"This world isn't meant for you. Your story isn't worth telling and you will never be included in mine. We still like the animals though."

Bit dramatic but even so, it does feel like that at times.

So I want to own this book. I want to flip through this at multiple times in my life. I want to remember my love for fairies and indulge (wentelen) in the feeling that Child-Me wouldn't have to look for other stories that included her.