“Field Biology of the Wee Fairies” (2018)

This story by Naomi Kritzer is highly enjoyable, a canny mashup of girl power and “faerie” tale. To be clear, Kritzer spells it fairy, but still. In the world of this story—which is also 1962 US—adolescent girls are expected to catch a fairy and get a wish. It’s an adolescent rite of passage. The wishes are generally on the order of being more pretty. Our main character, Amelia, is a smart young girl whose skills and aptitude for science and math are frustrated by the profound sexism of the time. She is working on a science project, probably the best of anyone else’s in the school, yet she can’t get into the school Science Club because she’s a girl. The fairy thing is real in this story, though not what it appears, as the teeny creatures are wily, with their own agenda. They let themselves be caught because the touch of a human makes it possible for them to read the future. They grant a wish they know will come true, but there are other benefits in it for them. Amelia suspects some of this, and so, when a fairy appears to her and starts flitting around to be caught, her scientific instincts kick in. She captures it in a jar without touching it and then interviews it for information. What she learns enables her to triumph over the Science Club. It’s all stitched together well. As more of a girl power story it bears a light hand with the fairy stuff. The story is obviously as skeptical as Amelia—and yet fairies are real (in this story). I am undereducated on fairy lore myself, which I understand extends back far into antiquity, so I don’t know how ignorant I may sound when I talk about a Susanna Clarke model. This story anyway struck me as more of what I encountered in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, as these fairies are small and charming, but quite intelligent, with strange and great powers, and not necessarily on our side. I like the way Amelia can break down her fairy and get some straight talk from it. She’s remarkably clearheaded for a juvenile in the first place, but at the end she definitely has the look of someone who is going to go far in this world. It’s such a happy ending it’s irresistible even as the story’s strands are brought off nicely on many levels.

The Long List Anthology, Vol. 5: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List, ed. David Steffen
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