I was drowsing in a stuffy old armchair beside my window when I hear a sharp crack, as if something had grabbed onto either side of reality and ripped it apart.
My eyes popped open. I looked up.
There, smiling down at me through large round eye glasses, stood a luminescent figure of indeterminate age. A fringe of silver hair fluttered around a cherubic face and an enormous bowtie festooned with punctuation marks sprung like the wings of a butterfly from either side of his chin.
“Good evening,” he said, his voice as gentle as the sound talcum powder makes when sprinkled on our toes.
I blinked.
“Who …What …?”
He wiggled his fingers as though limbering them up to play the piano and announced, “I am your Fairy God Librarian.”
I have wanted many things in life, some of which I don’t deserve, but never on that list had I put a Fairy God Librarian. I crossed my arms over my chest and harrumphed skeptically, “Next you’ll be telling me that I get three wishes.”
“Not three,” He said thoughtfully. “Just one.” Then he turned toward the bookshelves lining my wall. “It is a special kind of a wish. Very, very special. Because you get to make a wish-list of books!”
My eyes followed his to the shelves. I shook my head and pouted, “But I already have all of the books that I need. All of the books that I love.”
“Yes.” He nodded, smiling. “That is why I have come to you. The wish I am granting is for you to put on the shelves of all those people who don’t know which books to buy, the ones that you want them to have. Not only books for grownups. Books for children, too. So that they can be enchanted, excited, terrified, reassured, inspired, and thrilled in the same way that you were, when you were growing up.”
I leapt to my feet and reached out to grab that endearing apparition by the shoulders. I wanted to give him a big, grateful hug. But my arms went right through him! What my Fairy God Librarian possessed in charm he certainly lacked in tangibility.
“You really want me to make that list?” I exclaimed. “Really? Really? Really?”
“Scouts honor,” he said, his smiled followed by a low chuckle.
And so, my friends, here is my first, incomplete, wish-list of books. It is limited to British, French, and American authors. Some are classics. Some are just terrific reads. All would be wonderful additions to your bookshelf.

BRITISH ISLES
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Dracula - Bram Stoker
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
Sherlock Holmes Stories - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Miss Marple Mysteries - Agatha Christe
Hercule Poiroit Mysteries - Agatha Christe
Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries - Dorothy L. Sayers
Goodbye Mr. Chips - James Hilton
Lost Horizons - James Hilton
All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot
All Things Bright and Beautiful - James Herriot
A Town like Alice - Nevil Shute
Trustee from the Tool Room - Nevil Shute
No Highway - Nevil Shute
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Trilby - George du Maurier
Beau Geste - P. C. Wren
How Green Was My Valley - Richard Llewellyn
Harry Potter Books - J. K. Rowling

FRENCH
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
The Three Musketeers - Alexander Dumas
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo
The Man who Laughed - Victor Hugo
Cyrano de Bergerac (play) - Edmond Rostand

NORTH AMERICAN
My Name is Aram - William Saroyan
The Human Comedy -William Saroyan
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
Sweet Thursday - John Steinbeck
Call of the Wild - Jack London
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
We the Living - Ayn Rand
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
The Last Angry Man - Gerald Green
Exodus - Leon Uris
QB VII - Leon Uris
The Robe - Lloyd C. Douglas
The Virginian - Owen Wister
Shane - Jack Schaeffer
Monte Walsh - Jack Schaeffer
Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The High and the Mighty - Ernest K. Gann
Short Stories - O. Henry
Letters from the Earth - Mark Twain
Tarzan - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maude Montgomery
Daddy Long Legs - Jean Webster

Left to my own devices, would I have had the nerve to foist my favorite fiction upon you? No. Never. Not, at least, without a prod from my Fairy God Librarian. Happy reading!

Shelly Reuben is an Edgar-nominated author, private detective, and fire investigator. For more about her books, visit shellyreuben.com
Copyright © 2008, Shelly Reuben