Fairy Tales

A few years ago, wizards lit up the YA book world. Then came vampires who sucked up book sales. Now fairies are flittering into the bookstores.

If you write YA, you may already know about the fairy invasion. I don’t. And I didn’t.

According to The New York Times, “These aren’t gift-shop fairies. They’re capricious, twilight creatures that travel between the fairy realm and our own, meddling in human lives.”

The fairies seem to come with different powers, friends and aspirations.

In Cyn Balog’s “Fairy Tale,”a clairvoyant high school girl discovers that her perfect boyfriend is actually a changeling — a fairy child raised by unsuspecting humans. Malinda Lo’s somber and lovely “Ash” is a lesbian retelling of “Cinderella.”

In the majority of these fairy YA novels, the conundrum is a choice between an earthly and a fairy lover. There’s, of course, the usual teen angst over fitting in with the rest of the kids at school, only sometimes with a twist:

Laurel, in “Wings,” has the worst time with this because she discovers she’s not only a fairy but a plant.

Some of the books are apparently quick reads. Some are complex. At least one is getting attention from more than just the pre-teen and teen crowd.

Another much-admired writer in the fairy genre is Laini Taylor, whose fantasy collection “Lips Touch” is a nominee this year for a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.