The Magical Creatures of Isadora Moon by Harriet Muncaster

Since 2016, thirty-three World of Isadora Moon books have been published, and I’m looking forward to sharing more stories in the future! Across all these adventures, vampire fairy Isadora Moon, witch fairy Mirabelle, and mermaid princess Emerald, have met lots of magical characters and fantastical creatures. With Books2Door promoting Isadora Moon for their ‘Book of the Day’ campaign, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the characters and creatures that have already been introduced in my books (and maybe a few from upcoming titles!). How many have you read about?

Fairies

Isadora’s mum, Countess Cordelia Moon, is a fairy, which makes Isadora and her baby sister, Honeyblossom, both half fairy. As a summer fairy, Cordelia specialises in magic related to plants, flowers and fruits. Her sister, Isadora’s aunt Crystal, is a winter fairy who does lots of magic using snow and ice. All fairies love nature, can bring things to life with their magic wands (or even magic things out of thin air!) and are vegetarian.

Vampires

Isadora’s vampire side comes from her dad, Count Bartholomew Moon. Vampires usually sleep during the day, and spend their nights flying among the stars. In Isadora’s house, they have two breakfasts every day: morning breakfast, and evening breakfast, which is when Count Bartholomew wakes up. Importantly, vampires only eat red food, and are especially fond of tomatoes, particularly when they are made into red juice. Another key feature of vampires is that they love to look sleek and tidy. Bartholomew spends hours combing his hair and polishing his fangs, and is rarely seen out of his smart shirt, trousers, cape and shiny black shoes.

Witches

Isadora’s mischievous cousin, Mirabelle Starspell, is half witch, and her mum, Seraphina Starspell, is a full witch. Witches use cauldrons and magical ingredients to create all sorts of potions, such as shrinking spells and potions to make your hair grow extra-long or put glitter in it. They can even magic up dragons and other creatures with the right ingredients! They can fly around on broomsticks, and, just like fairies and vampires, they have their own special diet: witches love eating creepy crawlies, such as spiders on toast, slug sausages and frogspawn mash!

Mermaids

As you would expect, mermaids live under the sea and usually try not to get spotted by humans, although sometimes they use magical bubbles or enchanted necklaces to let people visit their underwater world. Mermaids live all over, and sometimes they go on holiday to different parts of the ocean, but most of the mermaids we’ve met so far live in Scallop City. Scallop City isn’t so different from a human city: there are houses, streets and shops, only the houses are often shaped like shells and don’t have stairs (because the mermaids just swim up to the next floor!) and there are no cars, although sometimes mermaids skate around on manta rays or ride dolphins. For longer journeys, they might ride in a carriage pulled by several dolphins.

Ghosts

Although the idea of a ghost can seem scary at first, they’re usually quite friendly once you get to know them! When Isadora’s class first discovered Oscar the Ghost while exploring a haunted castle in Isadora Moon Goes on a School Trip, they were all terrified, but he turned out to be friendly and quite charming! Because people usually run away from and ghosts spend so much time on their own, they often get very good at different hobbies, such as playing the piano, archery or gardening, and they usually know quite a lot of interesting things! After being stuck in the castle on his own for over two hundred years, Oscar now resides in Isadora Moon’s attic, where he keeps an eye on the bats and occasionally supervises Isadora in the kitchen.

Monsters

These monsters were originally just life-size models on a ghost train ride, until Mirabelle used her magic potion on them in Isadora Moon Goes to the Fair. Once they came to life, everyone was frightened, but the monsters weren’t really scary: they just wanted to explore the fair and have some fun. They also came to life with a big appetite for all the fairground treats, such as popcorn, hot dogs and candy floss!

Dragons

Dragons are particularly associated with witches. Perhaps it is their fiery mischievous nature that attracts witches to dragons so much? Mirabelle once magicked up a dragon for Isadora’s bring-your-pet-to-school day in Isadora Moon Gets in Trouble. As it was just a magicked-up dragon and Mirabelle was still perfecting the spell, it grew from a tiny baby dragling up to a fully grown one, and then disappeared in just over a day. Once she had perfected the spell, Mirabelle was able to make more dragons in Mirabelle Gets Up to Mischief, and one of them was even a proper dragon that stuck around to become Mirabelle’s special pet, Violet. Not all dragons look or behave in the same way though, and not all of them are magicked-up: some are wild, and some are kept as pets. In Mirabelle in Double Trouble, Mirabelle goes on a dragon trek ride at the witch resort with her family. You will also be able to meet some more, different kinds of dragon when Mirabelle visits a dragon sanctuary in Mirabelle and the Baby Dragons, launching in September 2024.

Bittens

Bittens are bat kittens. Baby bat cats! They have large fangs, and bat wings so that they can fly. Bittens are much bigger than normal kittens and they always have black or purple fur, sometimes striped. They love to play, and their favourite game is chasing butterflies.

Glow Sprites

Glow Sprites come from the planet Glistopia, a long way from Earth. They love to whizz through space, but are supposed to stay hidden from humans because they think humans are bad and dangerous, so they don’t usually come too close to the Earth.

When they do, they are often mistaken for shooting stars due to the bright glow of their bodies. Sometimes, they keep moon kittens as pets. The glow sprite Isadora meets in Isadora Moon and the Shooting Star is called Nova, and she loves playing hide-and-seek with her moon kitten, Pluto. Glow sprites like to eat moon cheese, astro loops, comet crunchies and star nuggets.

Snow People

In Isadora Moon Makes Winter Magic, Aunt Crystal’s magic snow causes Isadora’s Snow Boy and Snow Bunny creations to come alive. It turns out these are not the only living snow creatures though, as the Snow Fairy Queen has a whole host of snow people and snow animals living in her wintry palace with her!

Tooth fairies

The tooth fairy queen employs a large number of magical tooth fairy mice to collect children’s lost teeth at night, leaving a special coin in return for each collected tooth.

Unlike normal mice, these magical tooth fairies have miniature wands and wings, and can talk. The greatest and rarest prize for a tooth fairy mouse to collect is a well-polished vampire fang! If you’re wondering why the tooth fairy queen needs teeth, it’s to build her palace. And if you want to know why she uses tooth fairy mice to collect the teeth, it’s because she’s too big to sneak in to human houses to collect them herself!

Nymphs

You may not have read about nymphs yet, because they will be making their first appearance in Isadora Moon Makes a Wish, which will be out in October 2024. Nymphs are tricksy little magic creatures who can grant wishes. They love to have fun, eat sweet treats and make people happy. You have to be careful what you wish for with them though, as getting them to undo a wrong wish isn’t always easy!

Sea Sprites

Sea sprites are sweet and curious little creatures that look a little like miniature mermaids with glowy, sparkling skin. Because they are so rare, some mermaids don’t believe they really even exist.

However, if you know just where to look, in the deep ocean where the water is cold and a bit fizzy, you might just be able to find some! Just remember that, although they look like little merpeople, they are wild creatures that can only thrive in their natural habitat!

How many of these creatures have you managed to read about in my books? Are there some you’re interested to learn more about now? Are there any you can think of that I’ve missed? If you’re discovering The world of Isadora Moon for the first time, I hope you enjoy reading about all the adventures of these different characters and creatures. And if you’ve already read some of my books, I hope you enjoy discovering some of the new stories about Isadora Moon, Mirabelle and Emerald, and the friends they meet along the way!

With love, magic and sparkle,

Harriet Muncaster

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