Fairyland
#3574.02 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 5 books Status Complete 2011–2016 Reading commitment Medium Catherynne M. Valente Last reviewed 2026-10-15
Overview
In Fairyland, September, a bored twelve-year-old girl from Nebraska, is swept away by the Green Wind to Fairyland, a whimsical and perilous realm where she befriends a Wyverary (half wyvern, half library) and a marid, defies a tyrannical Marquess, and returns across four more books to a Fairyland that keeps changing as she grows up alongside it. Catherynne M. Valente's five-novel portal-fantasy sequence began with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2011) and closed with The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (2016), tracing September's development from child visitor to a figure with real responsibility for Fairyland's fate. The series is written in a dense, allusive, fairy-tale-narrator voice that consciously echoes writers like L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll, and the first volume began online as a serialized, reader-funded story before its traditional publication.
Portal fantasy, Fairy-tale retelling · For Middle grade
Core Canon: Reading Order (5 works) counts toward ranking
The Fairyland Series Catherynne M. Valente
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making | 2011 | 1 | core | 3.95 (41,982 ratings) |
 | The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There | 2012 | 2 | core | 4.17 (10,669 ratings) |
 | The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two | 2013 | 3 | core | 4.01 (5,655 ratings) |
 | The Boy Who Lost Fairyland | 2015 | 4 | core | 4.16 (2,925 ratings) |
 | The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home | 2016 | 5 | core | 4.47 (2,283 ratings) |
The 5-novel Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan) core sequence, 2011-2016.
Library / Expanded (1 work)
- The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland -- For a Little While (2011) ; Tor.com companion novella/interstitial piece.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Fairyland? Fairyland's Core Canon is 5 books, plus 1 more in the wider Library/Expanded material.
- What is the reading order for Fairyland? Publication order, starting with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is Fairyland finished? Complete (2011–2016).
- How much reading does Fairyland take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 5 Core Canon books · ~1,296 pages).
- How is Fairyland ranked? #357 in this site's official ranking, based on 63,514 reader ratings across 5 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #357?
Ranked #357 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 4.02 across 5 core books.
- A smaller readership (63,514 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Uneven reception: its books range from 3.95 to 4.47.
- Less than 0.01 behind #356, Dark Heavens (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Well rated · 5 books · Complete · 64k ratings · Ranks #357 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length portal fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (5 Core Canon books)
- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2011)
- The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (2012)
- The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (2013)
- The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (2015)
- The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (2016)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- Andre Norton Award (Best Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book), 2009: won: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making; Won by the original 2009 self-published serialized version of book 1, not the 2011 Feiwel & Friends print edition; SFWA's own award-year convention names the award by eligibility year, with the ceremony held in 2010.
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award (Children's Literature), 2012: finalist: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
You might also like
Suggestions computed from what Fairyland and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
- Impossible Creatures Portal fantasy / Mythic fantasy · Ongoing · Medium commitment · 4.13
- Magisterium Portal fantasy / Epic fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.03
- Green Knowe Portal fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.01
- Time Quintet Portal fantasy / Mythic fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 3.97
Official resources
- SFWA: Andre Norton Award archive
- The Mythopoeic Society: 2012 Mythopoeic Awards
- Wikipedia: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 4.02 across 63,514 ratings on 5 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Fairyland series admitted; Core Canon = the 5-novel sequence accepted 2026-08-18
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-08-18
Rule: Core = all 5 novels in the sequence (2011-2016). Expanded = the 2011 Tor.com companion novella. The original, 2009 self-published serialized version of book 1 -- textually distinct from, and the direct ancestor of, the 2011 print edition registered here -- is the version that won the Andre Norton Award.