Birdie and His Fairy Friends

About this book

This book contains 13 stories for little children, about a little boy named Birdie and his adventures out in nature with the fairies. The stories include "The Frost Fairies", made famous by a very similar short story entitled "The Frost King", penned by deaf/blind Helen Keller when she was a young girl. Helen's story was so similar to Margaret Canby's tale, that Keller was accused of plagerizing. Her teacher Anne Sullivan finally pieced together that a friend had read Margaret’s story to Helen years before, and she had internalized many details without remembering the story having been read to her. This episode helped reveal what Mrs. Canby described as Helen's "wonderfully active and retentive mind", and she was honored for her story to be so well remembered (and made so famous). (Summary by Michele Fry)