A TOOTH FAIRY'S TALE

Another dreamlike adventure from an inventive artist/punster (Drawer in a Drawer, 1990). The Borrower-size Tooth Fairy—the only fairy not turned to stone by ``a giant's evil eye''—lives with her father, the Sandman, in a sand castle pictured as an elaborate construction fitted with a beachcomber's findings and gleanings from a child's room. The ``giant'' is a greedy six- year-old who, when the fairy bargains with him for a stone that she hopes is her mother, escalates his demands until she and her dad seal his eyes with toothpaste so that they can safely retrieve the stone. Symbols abound here, from the fairy's eggshell bed to sea creatures swimming in air in the author's beautifully articulated surreal art, but they don't intrude. Imaginative children will be fascinated by the playful manipulation of images in this fanciful, mysterious world. (Picture book. 5-9)