An entertaining tale despite Decay Valley’s guilt trip.
In this second children’s chapter book in a series, a tooth fairy gets help from friends after she’s banished to Decay Valley for collecting an inadequately brushed tooth.
Batina is a “Tooth Collector” with a problem: Her next assignment, a boy named Scooter Brown, hasn’t been brushing well, and a tooth fairy’s chief responsibility is to motivate kids to practice good dental hygiene. If the tooth that she collects doesn’t pass inspection, she’ll be sent to Decay Valley until Scooter loses another, well-brushed tooth. (Well-brushed teeth, it turns out, are the source of fairy dust, which allows fairies to fly.) Meanwhile, fairy Jolene passes her tooth-collector exams with a respectable B-plus after having failed them the previous year. However, she still likes to cut corners, and before Batina can stop her, she disguises Scooter’s decayed tooth with white paint, hoping it’ll pass muster. Of course, the ruse doesn’t work. Before Batina reports to Decay Valley, she writes an encouraging note to Scooter, leaves it in her room, and asks her friends to deliver it. However, Jolene is too impatient to look for Batina’s note, so she tries to help by forging a new one. After the tooth-fairy authorities discover Jolene’s latest trick, they remind her of the fairy rules, which include strict honesty. After several days, Scooter loses another tooth; Jolene, regretting her previous behavior, volunteers to collect it, hoping for the best. Ditto (The Tooth Collector Fairies: Batina’s Best First Day, 2016) again uses the issue of dental hygiene, important in itself, to teach larger lessons about honesty, fairness, and cooperation. Jolene, the previous book’s most intriguing character, again steals the show here, and Ditto makes the tooth-fairy community seem like fun. However, it’s illogical that fairies should suffer banishment for children’s poor teeth, particularly when they have no chance to encourage them toward proper hygiene beforehand. Also, making young readers feel responsible for fairies’ well-being may add an extra layer of guilt to the dental-hygiene process. Illustrator Utomo’s (Mayanito’s New Friends, 2017, etc.) colorful images depict a diverse group of fairies and capture their actions and expressions well.
An entertaining tale despite Decay Valley’s guilt trip.Pub Date: March 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9967559-6-2
Page Count: 76
Publisher: Ditto Enterprises
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.
In Florence’s middle-grade fantasy novel, a young girl’s heart is tested in the face of an evil, spreading Darkness.
Eleven-year-old Lydia, “freckle-cheeked and round-eyed, with hair the color of pine bark and fair skin,” is struggling with the knowledge that she has reached the age to apprentice as an herbalist. Lydia is reluctant to leave her beloved, magical Mulberry Glen and her cozy Housetree in the woods—she’ll miss Garder, the Glen’s respected philosopher; her fairy guardian Pit; her human friend Livy; and even the mischievous part-elf, part-imp, part-human twins Zale and Zamilla. But the twins go missing after hearing of a soul-sapping Darkness that has swallowed a forest and is creeping into minds and engulfing entire towns. They have secretly left to find a rare fruit that, it is said, will stop the Darkness if thrown into the heart of the mountain that rises out of the lethal forest. Lydia follows, determined to find the twins before they, too, fall victim to the Darkness. During her journey, accompanied by new friends, she gradually realizes that she herself has a dangerous role to play in the quest to stop the Darkness. In this well-crafted fantasy, Florence skillfully equates the physical manifestation of Darkness with the feelings of insecurity and powerlessness that Lydia first struggles with when thinking of leaving the Glen. Such negative thoughts grow more intrusive the closer she and her friends come to the Darkness—and to Lydia’s ultimate, powerfully rendered test of character, which leads to a satisfyingly realistic, not quite happily-ever-after ending. Highlights include a delightfully haunting, reality-shifting library and a deft sprinkling of Latin throughout the text; Pit’s pet name for Lydia is mea flosculus (“my little flower”). Fine-lined ink drawings introducing each chapter add a pleasing visual element to this well-grounded fairy tale.
An absorbing fantasy centered on a resilient female protagonist facing growth, change, and self-empowerment.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781956393095
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Waxwing Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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