Each night, my daughter asks me to tell her a story. She often starts the story giving me the characters and some of the plot, but I have to do the rest. Some of these stories are interesting enough for me to drop up here (see the full collection).

Once upon a time, there was a little girl whose aunt gave her a present of some sunglasses. But these were special sunglasses, for instead of keeping the light out, it let the light in, and allowed her to see things that others couldn’t.

One day the little girl put on her sunglasses and went outside in her garden to look at the flowers and the butterflies. But now with her sunglasses on, the butterflies weren’t butterflies at all, but little tiny fairies!

She went over to one little fairy with white wings and said, “Good afternoon, little fairy!” But the fairy looked crossed and flew away. “Perhaps the fairy didn’t like being called little,” she thought to herself.

She then found another little fairy yellow and black wings and said, “Hello, would you like to play with me?” But the fairy turned up his nose and flew away. “Of course he didn’t want to play with me,” she thought to herself, “I’m much too big. Now what would a fairy like?”

Then she got an idea, so that when she saw a little fairy with purple wings, she called out, “Hello, pretty fairy, would you like to hear a story?”

The tiny fairy thought for a second and said in a high voice, “OK, but it better be a good one, for I’m kind of busy right now.”

So the little girl sat down next to the flower that the fairy was sitting on and told the purple butterfly… er, I mean, fairy, the story of the Three Pigs. When she was done the tiny fairy said, “Oh, I’ve heard that story before, I’ll come back tomorrow and you can try again,” and with that she flew away.

The next day, the little girl put on her sunglasses and went back into the garden. She looked around for some lady bugs until she saw the purple-winged fairy and she called out, “Hello, pretty fairy, would you like to hear a story?”

This time, the little girl told the fairy the story of the Three Bears, but when she was done, the fairy said, “That wasn’t very interesting. I’ll come back tomorrow and you can try one more time to tell me a good story,” and with that, she flew away.

So the little girl thought and thought. She even asked her dad for a story that the fairy would like, and he told her a couple that might work. So the next day, the little girl put her sunglasses on and went into the garden to wait for the purple-winged fairy.

When she saw her, she told her a new story about the Three Little Ponies, and when she was done, the tiny fairy was delighted. “Oh that was a grand story. I liked that a lot. I’ll come back tomorrow so that you can tell me that story again.”

And she did. And every day through the summer, the little fairy came into the garden to listen to a story from the little girl.