Daisy Meadows' Rainbow Magic books

Having a pseudonym is a common practice for many writers, from George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) to George Orwell (Eric Blair). More recently, bestselling crime writing duo Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have been writing together as Nicci French; and Swedish crime writers Alexander and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril are known collectively as Lars Kepler. I've blogged previously about the books of Lambert M Surhone and his team, who 'write' books by copying and pasting from Wikipedia.

Now I feel compelled to write about a series of children's books about fairies called Rainbow Magic, written by Daisy Meadows and published by Orchard Books. Daisy Meadows, it turns out, is also a pseudonym for a group of writers who seem to work from one story template, only changing names and places for different books. There are now over a hundred fairy books in the series, all based around best friends Kirsty Tate and Rachel Walker and their encounters with good fairies and bad goblins.

Dreadfully written books that are huge best sellers are a pretty common phenomenon, with Dan Brown's novels, JK Rowling's Harry Potter series and 50 Shades of Grey being three recent examples. The Rainbow Magic books are no exception, with their cut and paste story lines and terrible illustrations, so it comes as no surprise that over 20 million copies have been sold worldwide.

There's a seemingly inexhaustible range of Rainbow Magic books, with each series of seven books consisting of a different kind of fairy, be it Weather Fairies, Sporty Fairies, Dance Fairies, Music Fairies or Pet Fairies. Bland and dull, with predictable, repetitious storylines and characters, it's looking like the series could continue ad infinitum.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Baby Books and TV Programmes