Children's Fairyland, Storybook theme park in Oakland, United States

Children's Fairyland is a storybook theme park for toddlers in Oakland, California, extending across 10 acres near Lake Merritt and containing fairy tale play areas, miniature rides, and an animal area for young visitors. The attractions follow familiar fairy tales and nursery stories, with low structures scaled to preschool height.

Oakland nurseryman Arthur Navlet saw nursery-rhyme buildings at Detroit's Belle Isle children's zoo in 1947 and proposed larger climb-in sets for Lake Merritt. The Lake Merritt Breakfast Club and parks director William Penn Mott Jr. raised $50,000 from citizens, and architect William Russell Everritt designed 17 original sets. The park opened on September 2, 1950, with admission of 9 to 14 cents.

The park's entrance is the Old Woman in the Shoe set, a shoe with a house in its heel whose door was sized for children, so adults had to bend to enter. The Storybook Puppet Theater opened in 1956 and stages three shows a day from more than 150 fairy-tale and folk-tale productions, with bunraku, shadow, hand, rod and marionette puppets built on site. The Magic Key talking storybook boxes, invented by Oakland television personality Bruce Sedley, still operate.

The entrance is through the Old Woman in the Shoe set, whose doorway was built to child height, so adults must bend to pass through. The grounds cover 10 acres (4.0 ha) beside Lake Merritt, with play sets, small rides and animals; the puppet theater stages three shows a day year round. Adults must be accompanied by children, and visitors may bring their own food.

Walt Disney visited the facility in 1950 before developing Disneyland and recruited its first director, Dorothy Manes, as youth coordinator for his future project. The spatial design and approach to young visitors influenced his planning.