The Toothless Tooth Fairy

If you read this review before bed tonight, there might just be a shiny new quarter waiting for you under your pillow in the morning...           

THREE PROS
*The characters drawn by Anca Delia Budeanu are so perfect for the story -- in fact, I could easily see them in licensed boxes at my local toy store
*As you'll see below, there are a few gaps in author Shanelle Hicks' plot that I would have tinkered with, but they don't detract all that much from what felt like a nicely-paced and cute story 
*Making tooth fairydom a job, complete with scheduled rotations and a home office, was something I had never thought of (and will likely use when teeth start to drop like flies around here)   

THREE CONS 
*My biggest gripe is how the book proposes that hugging a bullying antagonist might fix the problem -- in real life, I doubt this method would be all that successful (though one can dream)
*Given the relative size of their heads, I can't get past the idea of a tiny fairy fitting a kid's incisor in her own mouth, even temporarily  
*Where's the justice for the other five finalists in the Smile Contest when the judges change the name of the top prize and award it to a contestant who bounced off a wall and lost a tooth and the person responsible for these mishaps 

ONE DAD'S OPINION
For starters, let me disclose that my daughter is still about a year away from really understanding the things we read to her.  So, while she enjoyed the pictures as much as I did, I leaned much more heavily on my son for feedback.  He liked the book despite the obvious disconnect between "fairy" tales and boys who talk about Transformers daily.  Lumping their votes in with my own pros and cons still doesn't quite get me to a Buy, but I think it has enough teeth to take a bite out of a Borrow...                              

Buy / BORROW / Donate / Destroy



2 comments:

Krista said...

I love your blog! It's always interesting to see where other people stand on their interpretations of books. The cover and title made me buy this book for my children. It was nice to see a variety of ethnicities on the front cover as a white mother with mixed children. I'd was delighted when I read this book. There are great messages like forgiveness, kindness, and inner beauty. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I think it's perfect for Zelda and Bella. The con's you mentioned never crossed my mind. This is a definite BUY!

Unknown said...

Erik, my fifth grade daughter and I released Zoey's Post-It Notes on Amazon at the start of the year (2017). It is about 6,500 words and a nice read. If you would be interested in doing a review you can contact me at jeff@i-goal.org. Regards, Jeff Steiner.