The secret life of a Book Fairy

I am branching out of my normal book review blogs to bring you something slightly different today. I wanted to share with you something that is very important to me and a lot of other book lovers around the world. You may have heard of the term 'Book Fairy' or this may be the first time you have read about it but it is something I have been a part of for a while and so I wanted to share with you the news that Magic is real and fairies do in fact exist all over the world! 🧚🏻

You may have seen in the news this weekend that the Duchess of Cambridge joined forces with the Book Fairies to celebrate the release of the fantastic book Hold Still, published by the National Portrait Gallery to create a unique collective portrait of the UK during lockdown. The Duchess is a Patron of the NPG and spearheaded this ambitious community project. Have a look at #HSBookFairies if you want to find out more!

The duchess and many other invisible fairies hid 150 copies of this extraordinary book in plain sight, at sites across the UK. Some of the books judges and contributors also joined in to hide copies of this book to be found by lucky members of the public.

This was an absolutely amazing campaign, which I am exceptionally proud to have been a part of. I myself was one of the fairies who furtively hunted for the best spot to leave a book without being spotted by anyone, I even enlisted my gorgeous son to don his fairy wings and help me out.

So what is a book fairy you may ask?

A book fairy can be anyone at all who has a love of books and wants to share this with others. In short book fairies are people who love to read, and then love to pass the books on. We package the books up with an official sticker and ribbon and then leave it hidden in plain sight for an unsuspecting member of the public to stumble across and hopefully take home to enjoy themselves. Anyone can be a book fairy all you have to do is visit https://ibelieveinbookfairies.com and you can find out more about the cause.

I found out about them through a friend and when I heard about the premise of wrapping a book and leaving it for someone to find I couldn't resist. I am all for finding ways to perform Random Acts of Kindnesss, and to be able to team that up with sharing books with the world it was a no brainer, I had to be a part of it!

The book fairies launched in March 2017 and have grown from strength to strength over the last 4 years, there are a huge amount of fairies all over the world who want to share their love of books and reading. As well as our Duchess, the fabulous Emma Watson has also been a book fairy and has joined in with a few campaigns hiding books around London Paris and NYC.

I have been a book fairy for a couple of years and have enjoyed leaving my books in secret spots, hoping that someone would find it and take it home. It is such fun sneaking around trying to find the best spot without being seen by anyone, I feel like an undercover agent! I even found out on Instagram that someone had in fact found one of my books and in doing so it had spurred them on to become a book fairy themselves. This is the ultimate dream, knowing someone is enjoying the book is fantastic but knowing that they are then going on to join the cause and pass it on is just the best feeling.

I was incredibly honoured to be offered the chance to take part in the #HSBookFairies campaign, being able to pass on such a beautiful book, capturing images of lockdown and the strength of people, was very special.

This event not only caused a national stir and showed just how kind and generous people can be, it also was important to me on a personal level as after the campaign I became an 'Official' Book Fairy for Sheffield. Meaning I will be able to take part in many more campaigns and share the book fairy joy far and wide. I am so excited to be a part of such an awe inspiring team and I hope I can do the role justice. You can find my page on instagram @bookfairies_sheffield

So how can you join the Book Fairy team?

That is the easy part, all you need to do is head on over to https://ibelieveinbookfairies.com and grab yourself some official book fairy stickers to apply to your books, you attach them to the front cover of your book and away you go to hide them. There are lots of other lovely things to find on the website, ribbons, badges, tote bags and more so you can immerse yourself as much or as little into the book fairy life as you wish! I do hope you take the time to visit the site and pick up some stickers though, and if you leave any in Sheffield make sure you tag me in your pictures!!

Have you heard of book fairies? Have I encouraged you to join us? I hope so. Let me know in the comments!