The Welsh Fairy book by W. Jenkyn Thomas

Exhibit A: My love of all things Welsh.

Exhibit B: My obsession with faeries, fairy tales, and folklore in general.

Exhibit C: The title of this book.

The defense rests.

More seriously, this is a fantastic collection. There's a wide variety of fairy tales in it--mostly featuring actual faeries--and I felt that it gave me a really good feeling for Welsh folklore in 1907 (when the book was first compiled). One can't really judge on the literary merit of folktales, but they're well-told, and most are entertaining and intriguing. A few had unexpected similarities to folktales of other cultures that I've encountered, and I would be interested to find out where these tropes originated (if it can be pinned down) and how they passed from one to the other.

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DeTerlizzi

What a delightful little series! I'm a huge fan of Holly Black, and as usual she didn't disappoint, with a thrilling tale of true-to-life (and -legend) faeries and children. I was delighted that they took a classic story, unhappy kids moving into a strange new house, and--well, didn't exactly turn it on its head, but created an engaging and original tale. The protagonist, Jared Grace, is a well-drawn and very sympathetic little boy whose parents' divorce has led to anger issues as well as a move to a house owned by his Great-Aunt Lucinda, where hides a very special book. His twin brother Simon and their older sister Mallory are also unique and fun characters, and the interactions between the siblings are quite believable--they squabble a lot, but when it's important (and when they have to hide things from their mother) they stick together. The story is also populated by faeries of all types and sizes--a brownie, some goblins (and one hobgoblin, thank you very much), a griffin, a phooka, elves, and more. I was happily surprised by some of the story's twists and gleefully predicted others. I really look forward to the movie. Of course, it will be lacking Tony DeTerlizzi's delightful illustrations, but I'm sure it will be wonderful anyway.