Falling to Fairyland with Cricket the Ward by Sarah Jean Horwitz

Posted by CBethM on March 16, 2026 in Author Posts | The working title of my upcoming middle grade fantasy novel, Falling to Fairyland, was originally a lot less magical-sounding. From day one of its inception as a baby idea to pretty much the finished product, I called the book Cricket the Ward. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, I know. I also knew that a lot of people, especially younger readers, might not even know what a “ward” 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 the book by its original title in my head, and I started to wonder why that was. I think it’s because that at least at the beginning of the novel, my characters aren’t ready to fall anywhere, least of all into the adventure they’re about to have. My main character, Cricket, has lived nearly his entire life as a ward – in his case, as a human child under the guardianship of a powerful fairy sorceress. Cricket is a changeling – a human child stolen from our world and taken to Fairyland. The only life Cricket’s ever known is a secluded one, confined mostly to the walls of the Fairy Witch’s tower, where he ...