{"id":5824,"date":"2026-03-16T09:39:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5824"},"modified":"2026-03-16T09:39:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T09:39:24","slug":"falling-to-fairyland-with-cricket-the-ward-by-sarah-jean-horwitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/?p=5824","title":{"rendered":"Falling to Fairyland with Cricket the Ward by Sarah Jean Horwitz"},"content":{"rendered":"

The working title of my upcoming middle grade fantasy novel,\u00a0Falling to Fairyland<\/em>,\u00a0was originally a lot less\u00a0magical-sounding. From day one of its inception as a baby idea to pretty\u00a0much\u00a0the finished product, I called the book\u00a0Cricket the Ward<\/em>.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t exactly roll off the tongue, I know.\u00a0I also knew that a lot of people, especially younger readers, might not even know what a \u201cward\u201d was. Wiser heads than mine prevailed and the title was changed to something far more reader-friendly and no less accurate, but I often still called\u00a0the book by its original title in my head, and\u00a0I started to wonder why that was.\u00a0I think it\u2019s because that at least\u00a0at\u00a0the beginning of the novel, my characters aren\u2019t ready to fall anywhere, least of all into the adventure they\u2019re about to have.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My main character, Cricket, has lived nearly his entire life as a ward \u2013 in his case, as a human child under the\u00a0guardianship\u00a0of a powerful fairy sorceress. Cricket is a changeling \u2013 a human child stolen from our world and taken to Fairyland.\u00a0The only life Cricket\u2019s ever known is a secluded one, confined mostly to the walls of\u00a0the\u00a0Fairy Witch\u2019s tower, where he spends his days serving as her most trusted spy.\u00a0At the beginning of the novel, when another character asks who he is, Cricket doesn\u2019t merely say his name. He introduces himself as \u201cCricket, ward of the Fairy Witch of the North.\u201d Hence\u00a0Cricket the Ward.\u00a0Cricket is fully defined by his relationship with \u2013 and subservience to \u2013 the Fairy Witch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But after a mysterious prophecy throws Cricket\u2019s status in the Fairy Witch\u2019s court into doubt, he\u2019s forced to leave the tower and go on a quest to prove his worth to her. And as he\u00a0journeys through Fairyland and meets its various denizens \u2013 both friend and foe \u2013 his unshakable faith in his identity as \u201cCricket the ward\u201d is challenged. Cricket has his own secret power, which the Fairy Witch has insisted he keep\u00a0hidden\u00a0for all these years: he is a shapeshifter.\u00a0For the first time, he\u2019s given the opportunityto explore that power on his own, to use his gifts not just in service of the Fairy Witch, but for himself and the friends he makes along the way. Over the course of the novel, others begin to call Cricket \u201cChangeling\u201d with a capital \u2018C.\u2019 With his ability to transform into whatever person or creature he desires, he is not just a changeling human, not just a boy, not just a ward \u2013 he is a changeling who\u00a0changes.\u00a0That\u2019s real power, and it comes from within.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I wrote the book that I called\u00a0Cricket the Ward<\/em>,\u00a0I was going on a journey of my own. Just as Cricket was\u00a0questioning his identity, I, too, was questioning mine. It\u2019s no secret that\u00a0Falling to Fairyland<\/em>\u00a0is fundamentally a story of queer identity. I\u2019ve been comfortable with the labels of \u201casexual\u201d and \u201cbiromantic\u201d I chose for my own queer identity for many years now. But writing this novel forced me to examine the fact that,\u00a0while I was\u00a0pretty\u00a0confident\u00a0about my sexual identity, I had just as much to explore about my\u00a0gender\u00a0identity as Cricket did. The book is very much done now, but my journey \u2013 and Cricket\u2019s \u2013 isn\u2019t over. I\u2019m not exactly\u00a0sure\u00a0which label is right for me (though I think I lean more towards the agender\u00a0part\u00a0of the spectrum),\u00a0but writing\u00a0Falling to Fairyland<\/em>\u00a0made me realize that there\u2019s no pressure to decide \u2013 not right away,\u00a0and maybe not ever.\u00a0At the end of the novel,\u00a0Cricket\u00a0doesn\u2019t immediately replace being \u201cthe ward\u201d with something else. He\u2019s just Cricket, and he\u2019s excited\u00a0for\u00a0where the rest of his journey will take him. I am, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I also realized that the title\u00a0change\u00a0to\u00a0Falling to Fairyland<\/em>\u00a0was better from more than just a marketing perspective. Because if I\u2019d kept the title\u00a0Cricket the Ward<\/em>,\u00a0then in a small way, I would be keeping Cricket defined by a label that no longer suits him by the end of the book. By letting that label go, I\u2019m letting Cricket free, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the introduction of the book, one of the narrators\u00a0explains\u00a0the\u00a0experience\u00a0of falling to Fairyland from the human realm.\u00a0Though the narrator gives plenty of advice,\u00a0they ultimately end with the line,\u00a0\u201cSometimes, falling is the most any of us can do.\u201d What I hope the rest of the book shows is that while falling can be painful and messy\u00a0and scary, it can also be beautiful and joyous and empowering. I hope my readers will take a moment to feel the sun against their face and the wind rushing through their hair as they take the plunge into these pages and go on their own journey through\u00a0the fairy realm. Because never fear \u2013 I wrote this book to catch you when you land. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Sarah\u00a0Jean\u00a0Horwitz<\/strong>\u00a0grew up next door to a cemetery and down the street from an abandoned fairy-tale theme park, which probably explains a lot. Her love of storytelling came from listening to her mother\u2019s original \u201cfractured\u201d fairy tales, a childhood spent in community theater, and far too many rereads of her favorite fantasy books. She now lives with her spouse near Boston, Massachusetts, in a neighborhood sadly lacking in witches\u2019 towers. Find Sarah Jean online at\u00a0sarahjeanhorwitz.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The working title of my upcoming middle grade fantasy novel,\u00a0Falling to Fairyland,\u00a0was originally a lot less\u00a0magical-sounding. From day one of its inception as a baby idea to pretty\u00a0much\u00a0the finished product, I called the book\u00a0Cricket the Ward.\u00a0It doesn\u2019t exactly roll off the tongue, I know.\u00a0I also knew that a lot of people, especially younger readers, might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}