Succeeding Beyond Emancipation: Reuel Mack's Story

By C.J. Hirschfield

Five years ago, I wrote a column about an extraordinary young woman, Reuel Mack, who’d been referred to Fairyland from an organization called Beyond Emancipation, which is Alameda County’s primary provider of services for former foster youth. Reuel had been in the foster system, in many different homes, for most of her life. As a child, she never knew her biological mother. Her father was in jail. She eventually learned she has 11 siblings.

Today I’m proud to share with you a very happy update to Reuel’s story – a story that Reuel herself will tell the guests at our 23^rd annual gala fundraiser on Wednesday, May 30.

When Muppets Come to Call

By C.J. Hirschfield

Children’s Fairyland boasts the longest-running puppet theater in America. Founded in 1956, it still presents three shows a day, every day we’re open.

The Storybook Puppet Theater is such a fixture in our park that we tend to take it for granted. Occasionally, though, we’ll be reminded that it has started the careers of some of the country’s greatest puppeteers, and continues to inspire those who perform one of the most ancient forms of artistic expression.

Fairyland's Storybook Puppet Theater.

After 28 Years, Author Mac Barnett Returns to Fairyland

By C.J. Hirschfield

“He is a believer that picture books can have Swiftian absurdity and untidy endings, and that ‘life is absurd, and kids know that.’”
— San Francisco Chronicle

Before he was a New York Times bestselling author, before more than 1 million copies of his books were sold in the U.S. and translated into more than 30 languages, and before his two Caldecott Honor–winning books, there was … Fairyland.

Young Mac Barnett as Peter Pan with Captain Hook (Edward Hightower) and Major Catastrophe (Carol Becksted)

Yes, Mac Barnett, the renowned author of 15 children’s books, was a Fairyland Personality when he was a youth. We’re delighted that he will join us for our Turn the Page! children’s book festival on May 19. And we like to think that the imaginary world he inhaled at our special park inspired his later fiction.