Yep, I finally got there. It’s Rainbow Magic time.

So Rainbow Magic is a Heckelbeck-level lengthy chapter book series that I’ve been avoiding for a while. But sometimes you find a near-mint collection at Goodwill last week and fate has other plans.

You’ve probably heard of Rainbow Magic. There’s over 300 books at this point, and it’s only been going since 2003. I smell ghostwriting. Not that that’s a bad thing. Daisy Meadows. If that is your real name.

Premise

Rainbow Magic is split up into a bunch of “sub-series” each featuring a different themed set of fairies. Each sub-series has about 7 books, and covers a small stint of adventures following main characters Rachel and Kirsty as they help different fairies deal with the “evil” Jack Frost and his “evil” goblin minions. The Night Fairies (or Twilight Fairies if you follow the British source book naming), is one of these many sub-series. The one I’ll be talking about today.

Rachel and Kirsty travel to Camp Stargaze to spend a week in nature. Once there, they are informed that the Night Fairies magical bags have been stolen by Jack Frost, who plans to use them to cause all sorts of age-appropriate havoc. Rachel and Kirsty must team up with each fairy to help them get their magic bags back.

Characters

This section might be a bit lighter than usual. The characters below certainly are characters, but their depth is…well about what you would expect for a chapter book series with over ten characters per book. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Rachel Walker & Kirsty Tate

The main characters I mentioned above. I’m pretty sure they’re the main characters of every Rainbow Magic book. Which means they’ve been on over three-hundred fairy adventures. I’m surprised they haven’t aged or anything by now. Do they do an adventure every day?

Well in The Night Fairies at least, yeah they actually do. Sometimes multiple per day.

Oh, right. The characters. Rachel and Kirsty are…girls…who enjoy…age-appropriate activities. Like camping! Also they’re nice, but we all know by now that’s a freebee in chapter books. There’s really not much more to say about these two. The little dialogue they have is mostly exposition to move the plot along. These chapter books are more about the events and the fairies, so I get it. Really, I do. I’m sure they’re great people in person.

The Night Fairies

Ava the Sunset Fairy, Lexi the Firefly Fairy, Zara the Starlight Fairy, Morgan the Midnight Fairy, Nia the Night Owl Fairy, Anna the Moonbeam Fairy, and Sabrina the Sweet Dreams Fairy to be specific. In any other Series Spotlight, each of them would have their own section, but they’re really just one character. More or less. They’re all nice and all concerned about getting their magic back. They have very different fashions, which I guess is a character trait in this series.

Each book features a different Night Fairy and, more importantly, their really weird specifically-themed magic. It’s kind of cool actually now that I think about it.

Ava the Sunset Fairy has the magic to control sunsets.
Lexi the Firefly Fairy has the magic to make fireflies glow.
Zara the Starlight Fairy has the magic to control the stars in the sky.
Morgan the Midnight Fairy has the magic to…make midnight feasts good?
Nia the Night Owl Fairy has the magic to affect anything’s sleeping patterns.
Anna the Moonbeam Fairy has the magic to keep the moon bright.
Sabrina the Sweet Dreams Fairy has the magic to give anything good or bad dreams.

Also they can do some other “generic” kinds of magic, like turning people into fairies or bringing them to Fairyland. Whatever the books need them to do, really.

Matt and Lucas

The books insist they’re real characters, so I’ll mention them. Matt and Lucas are two boys Rachel and Kirsty meet at camp. Despite them barely talking and never mattering in most of the books, apparently they become friends with our two main characters. Somehow.

Jack Frost and his Goblin Minions

This is the best character(s) section, and yes I do think these guys are the best. Not just because they’re the only characters with any real character.

Jack Frost is a likeable villain and the goblins he commands are real people. They fight with themselves and have safety dolls and emotions and feelings and even wives and kids if I’m seeing these other books correctly. Also they live in Fairyland alongside the other fairies so they can’t be that bad, now can they?

Jack isn’t even really that bad of a guy, either. Sure he’s selfish and petty and vain and commits acts of thievery and whatnot, but he has his reasons. Kind of.

Series Breakdown

There’s only seven, so sure I’ll talk about them all. Don’t expect anything too magical here.
Actually, one thing. In the UK (where these books originate) some of the fairies have different names. I have no idea why they change them in English, they’re normal names.
(1) Ava the Sunset Fairy – Rachel and Kirsty get Ava’s bag back during hide-and-seek.
(2) Lexi the Firefly Fairy – Rachel and Kirsty travel to Fairyland to get Lexi’s bag back from Jack Frost’s castle. Jack Frost wants to hoard the fireflies to light his castle at night.
(3) Zara the Starlight Fairy – Rachel and Kirsty trick the goblins during a scavenger hunt to get Zara’s bag back.
(4) Morgan the Midnight Fairy – Kirsty turns into a goblin and Rachel turns into a ghost to trick them into getting Morgan’s bag back. Fairy magic is crazy sometimes.
(5) Nia the Night Owl Fairy (UK: Yasmin) – Rachel and Kirsty do some mid-air tricks to get Nia’s bag back.
(6) Anna the Moonbeam Fairy (UK: Maisie) – Rachel and Kirsty dress up as scientists to divert the goblins to the lake. And get Anna’s bag back.
(7) Sabrina the Sweet Dreams Fairy – Rachel and Kirsty convince Jack Frost himself to trade them Sabrina’s bag in exchange for sweet dreams.

Cool Stuff

Fairies from other books show up.
Joy the Summer Vacation Fairy shows up in book 2. Many other fairies are mentioned as well, or shown in the backgrounds in Fairyland. I’m surprised at this level of continuity, but it’s probably there just to sell more books. Still cool.

Rachel and Kirsty are even nice to the bad guys.
In Lexi they mention that the fireflies would have lit Jack’s castle if he had asked. In Nia they give the goblin back his doll that he lost. In Sabrina they feel bad Jack is scared of the dark, and actively just help him (in exchange for Sabrina’s bag).

Pretty actually nice of them. Maybe Rachel and Kirsty get to earn a legitimate nice trait, like Sophie and Isadora.

The other humans aren’t weirded out at the strange things happening.
Maybe this isn’t actually a cool thing, but I wanted to mention it. This is something I think only chapter books can really get away with. For the sake of the plot and pacing, reality can take a back seat.

Green sunset? Well, that’s weird.
Stars literally moving around in the sky to form a face? What a scientific discovery!
Giant eerie ball of light on top of that hill? Must be other campers.

They try to make it make sense at least. I’ll buy most of them. It’s fine.

Morgan the Midnight Fairy’s magic is really weird.
Is making midnight feasts good all she can do? Are there other “midnight things” she can affect? I’m hoping other fairies in other sub-series are this specific. That could be fun.

All seven books tell a longer story.
I haven’t seen this since Princess Pulverizer. Sure, each book is a self-contained story, but they connect a bit since they have that overarching plot.

Conclusion

I really didn’t think I was going to like these Rainbow Magic books, but there’s just enough there to like. Cool magic, cool villains, cool situations. Cool series.

I had read Ellie the Guitar Fairy a while back just to see what Rainbow Magic was all about, but reading a full sub-series is something else. I’ll have to keep an eye out for others when I get books. There’s a lot more to read.

But should you read any of the Night Fairies books? I think the magic of Rainbow Magic is there’s a fairy there for everyone. So check out all the books out there and maybe pick the one that resonates with you the best.

Rainbow Magic also has early readers and standalone Special Edition books and even one movie! Lots more magic and fairies to enjoy. You can be sure we’ll be joining Rachel and Kirsty again sometime.