Pixie Tricks is a children's book series written by Tracey West. In it, an eight-year-old girl named Violet meets a fairy named Sprite, who is tasked by Queen Mab to find 14 fairies (or pixies) that have escaped into the human world and send them back to the fairy world by tricking them into doing something contrary to their normal behavior.
This work provides examples of:
- Accidental Hero: Violet's cousin Leon falls into this four times throughout the series (in books 2, 3, 4, and 8 respectively).
- Aerith and Bob: Finn, Robert B. Gnome, and arguably (Bogey) Bill have completely normal-sounding first names compared to the other fairies, who are named things like Jolt, Ragamuffin, Sport, Fixit, Meanie, and Spoiler. Aquamarina and Buttercup are sort of in between.
- All Just a Dream: Violet briefly fears this to have been the case when she wakes up in her bed the next morning at the end of the last book after flying around town with Sprite. Then she and Leon both find Royal Pixie Tricker medals under their pillows, proving it was all real.
- Anti-Villain: The pixies range from fairly harmless to various shades of Obliviously Evil, Blue-and-Orange Morality, and It Amused Me all the way up to being outright malicious, but the stand-out examples for this would be Greenie and Ragamuffin. Greenie mostly just goes along with his brother Meanie's scheme to kidnap and sell people's dogs, and he admits that he never cared about the money; he just liked the dogs. Ragamuffin appears for only 11 pages in one book. Her crime? Stealing people's socks. And beyond that, she is perfectly friendly to Violet and Sprite and even gets excited about the matching outfit they give her to trick her.
- Big Bad: Wizard Finn, who led the magical crimes against humanity.
- But Now I Must Go: Sprite at the end of the series once all 14 pixies have been tricked, since Queen Mab needs him in the Otherworld. However, he has one last evening of fun with Violet and Leon first by using his magic to let them fly around town with him.
- Cowardly Lion: Leon tends to get scared easily, but once Violet or Sprite give him a pep talk, he's able to pull it together and be brave. A primary example is in the final book, where Finn threatens to turn Violet and Leon into worms unless they leave; Leon starts to run away, but once Violet reminds him that Sprite's their friend and they can't leave him, Leon agrees and likewise refuses Finn's Sadistic Choice along with her.
- Creepy Crows: Old Tom, Wizard Finn's pet crow.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Sprite is a sprite, and Pix is a pixie.
- Evil Sorcerer: Wizard Finn, of the "wicked wizard" type.
- The Fair Folk: Fourteen faerie fugitives causing trouble towards humanity.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Sprite and Violet have a pretty vitriolic relationship at first, and the latter also finds her cousin Leon to mostly just be annoying. By the end, Violet and Sprite have become practically best friends, and she and Leon are also a lot closer and get along better.
- Go Through Me: When Violet and Leon (who've been shrunk to be the same size as Sprite) refuse to leave Sprite behind with Finn, Old Tom tries to eat Violet. Sprite promptly puts himself between them, and this is the final straw to defeat Finn.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Spoiler messes up Sprite's plans because she's jealous of him getting the attention from Queen Mab.
- Griping About Gremlins: Jolt. And Rusella, for an odd value of "gremlin".
- Heel–Face Turn: Spoiler, though she was never really evil in the first place, as she started working for Finn out of jealousy of Sprite and belief that Queen Mab dislikes her. Once the main trio assures her this isn't true, she helps them escape Finn's cage and gladly goes back home.
- The High Queen: Queen Mab is the benevolent ruler of the fairy world.
- Idiosyncrazy: A variant of it in that each of the fourteen pixies (except Finn) has their own sort of gimmick or tendency in what kind of trouble they cause:
- Pix loves to play and wants everyone to play with him...by putting them under his spell so they'll want to do nothing but play. He was tricked in book 1 by making him do work.
- Jolt is a gremlin who messes with gadgets (particularly video games) and loves to play video games. He was tricked in book 2 by making him read a book.
- Aquamarina is a water sprite who causes faucets to leak but turns people into fish if they see her. She was tricked in book 3 by getting her on dry land.
- Bogey Bill is a goblin who likes scary things and making people scared. He was tricked in book 4 by making him say something sweet.
- Buttercup is a sprite who likes to give people the hiccups. She was tricked in book 4 by scaring her.
- Fixit is an elf who messes up toys because he is angry at children for being ungrateful for his hard work making them. He was tricked in book 5 by making him smile.
- Rusella is a message gremlin, who mixes up messages to cause communication problems. She was tricked in book 5 by making her eat alphabet soup.
- Sport is a sprite who helps a soccer team cheat so that they always win. She was tricked in book 6 by "beating her fair and square" by temporarily disabling her magic powers.
- Ragamuffin likes clothes, especially socks, and steals people's socks (so they can't find a match when they need one). She was tricked in book 6 by convincing her to wear clothes that match.
- Greenie and Meanie are dwarves who kidnap people's dogs so they can sell them and get rich. They were tricked in book 7 by "getting them both to obey", which in this case involved convincing them to make money from another product of the human world instead. (They are the only pixies who went back of their own accord rather than being swept away.)
- Hinky Pink changes the weather. He was tricked in book 8 by making him tell the truth about the weather.
- Spoiler appears in several books to ruin the main characters' plans for tricking the pixies. She was finally tricked in book 8 by convincing her to help them instead (at the suggestion of Queen Mab, who still believes that Spoiler is good deep down...and turns out to be absolutely right).
- Wizard Finn doesn't have a gimmick; he is simply the leader of the troublemaking pixies and wants to take over the human world. He was tricked in book 8 by the protagonists standing strong despite him trying to break them apart.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Spoiler, maybe Meanie, and likely Fixit, as his anger seems to stem from underappreciation rather than true malice.
- Kid Hero: Eight-year-old Violet and her younger cousin Leon.
- Ladyella: Rusella.
- Meaningful Name: Most of the pixies. As a few examples, Meanie is the meaner of the two dwarf brothers; Sport loves sports; Aquamarina is a water sprite; Ragamuffin looks like one because of her mismatching clothes; Spoiler frequently appears to mess things up; etc.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Leon in book 3 when he becomes part fish.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Finn offers a truce to Violet and Leon where, in exchange for not exposing him as a wizard, he'll return them to their normal size and let them leave unharmed, threatening to turn them into worms and feed them to Old Tom, his bird, if they refuse. But when he reveals he will keep Sprite prisoner, Violet immediately refuses the deal, and Leon follows suit, stating that they're a team.
- No Ontological Inertia: Fairies' spells are immediately broken when they're tricked and sent back to the Otherworld, like Pix's victims being freed from only wanting to play, the toys Fixit messed up no longer being broken, and Violet and Leon returning to their normal size after Finn is gone.
- Opposing Sports Team: The Red Team in book 6 as a result of the Pixie of the Week, though it's implied that the other team isn't really all that bad without the supernatural assistance.
- Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Greenie and Meanie.
- Our Fairies Are Different: In the fairy cast, there're at least three standard winged sprites, a water sprite, an elf, a goblin, two dwarves, a gnome, a gremlin, a "message gremlin", a human-sized wizard, and whatever kind of fairy Pix, Ragamuffin, Hinky Pink, Spoiler, and Queen Mab are.
- Our Elves Are Different: Fixit is implied to be more akin to a Christmas Elf (albeit a spiteful one).
- Our Mermaids Are Different: Not exactly a mermaid (we don't have a trope for "Our Supernatural Humanoid Aquatic Creatures Are Different"), but Aquamarina otherwise fits, being a water sprite. She has the ability to breathe underwater and can transform people into fish.
- Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Robert B. Gnome. (Though he's not actually all that weird.)
- Our Goblins Are Different: Bogey Bill.
- Poke the Poodle: Some of the pixies' acts of troublemaking are genuinely harmful. Others...not so much. The biggest example has to be Ragamuffin, who's entirely non-malicious and just steals people's socks because she likes them.
- Sixth Ranger: Violet and Sprite are initially a duo in the first few books, before Violet's cousin Leon—who was previously an unwitting Accidental Hero—finds out about Sprite as well in the third book and joins the team, making them a trio for the rest of the series.
- Species Surname: Robert B. Gnome.
- Sue Donym: Wizard Finn attempts to run for mayor under the name "Wiz Finnster".
- The Trickster: Several of the pixies qualify, though Rusella is probably the best example.
- True Companions: The main characters proving their status as this at the climax of the last book ("standing strong" and "following their hearts") is how they trick/defeat the Big Bad, Finn, when he tries to tear them apart.
- Finn has shrunk Violet and Leon and imprisoned them, but offers them a deal that he'll turn them back to normal and let them leave if they stop resisting him; however, Sprite will remain his captive. Sprite, even though he knows how much danger he'll be in as Finn's prisoner, nonetheless urges them to agree for their own sakes, stating he'll be happy as long as he knows they're safe.
- However, both Violet and Leon refuse to leave Sprite behind, despite Finn's threat to turn them into worms and feed them to his pet bird, Old Tom, if they don't accept his deal, with Leon reaffirming that they're a team.
- Old Tom then tries to eat Violet, and Sprite pulls a Go Through Me to protect her. This selflessness and care they all show for each other is enough to trick Finn and send him back to the fairy world, breaking his spell.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Some of the "tricks" used to send the pixies back seem like this. Who would think you could end all of Rusella's chaos by convincing her to eat alphabet soup of all things?
- Weather Manipulation: Hinky Pink's power.
- We Used to Be Friends: Sprite notes this word-for-word to Spoiler. She reveals she stopped being friends with him out of jealousy that Queen Mab made him a Royal Pixie Tricker and not her, although since she makes a Heel–Face Turn by the end, they might become friends again later.
- When He Smiles: When Fixit finally smiles at the end of book 5, Violet realizes that she feels sorry for him and tells him that she would have made him a toy of his own even if she didn't need it to trick him (by making him smile). The elf is still grateful anyway.
