In Valente's previous novel, Palimpsest, the narrator briefly discusses a book that one of the characters read as a child, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.
September's father is a soldier at war in Europe and her mother works all day building airplane engines in a factory.
When they find the Marquess, she hands over the witches' spoon in return for September's promise to retrieve a special sword from a casket in the Worsted Wood.
Fairyland was published by Feiwel & Friends as a novel for young adults (10–14 years old), but has been embraced as a tale for all ages.
The New York Times noted that "there’s a ton of grown-up humor—Valente mocks bureaucrats, Bergman and put-upon grad students, lost on kids but fun for oldsters.
"[6] Neil Gaiman called it a "glorious balancing act between modernism and the Victorian Fairy Tale", while Peter S. Beagle said "Catherynne Valente is a find, at any age!
"[7] Selected as a Best Book of the Month for May 2011, Amazon.com called Fairyland "a fantastical tale that's somewhere between Lewis Carroll and Terry Pratchett", stating that "Catherynne Valente's imaginative cast of characters and spirited prose turn what could be a standard heroine-on-a-quest story into something on par with the best (and weirdest) classics.
In this story, September returns to Fairyland and attempts to reunite with her shadow, Halloween, who was lost in the previous book.
In the third book, September is spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and finds herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers.