I'm preparing for an exhibition of manipulated photography (Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop, opening February 13 at the National Gallery) and thought that the famous Cottingley fairies might fit that description. As it turns out, those photographs were staged for the camera rather than manipulated after being taken--but I'm happy to have read The Fairy Ring, or Elsie and Frances Fool the World by Mary Losure (Candlewick, 2012) nonetheless. It's a lovely little book (note the period-appropriate font on the cover) that not only reveals how the fairy photographs were made, but puts them in context for those of us who find it hard to believe that anyone, let alone Arthur Conan Doyle, could have been fooled by them at all.