ENJELLA UPROOTED

Holy Molar! A lower-order tween fairy overcomes the naysayers to introduce modernization into the sparkly, twinkly tooth-fairy trade in Collen’s debut novel for tweens.

All fairy people (Fleeple) in Sparkleshire have roles in the “collecting and re-engineering of human baby teeth,” and Enjella, who sorts teeth, is no exception. But, being a girl, Enjella has the potential to become a First Class Tooth Fairy. The boy fairies (Flandles)—who are angry because they can never be tooth fairies—relentlessly tease and mistreat her. Enjella has another problem—condescension from her co-workers—who don’t respect her inventive ideas for improving Fleeple life and consider her a show-off. Just when her life seems most miserable, two life-changing events occur: A mysterious blue fairy saves Enjella from a police Fleeple who was ticketing her for falling on the village green, and the Queen of the Fairies promotes her from a low-level tooth sorter to Third Class Tooth Fairy Assistant. Even when Enjella’s first assignment turns out to be as an assistant to the notorious Ghastly Gevinda, she gets support from the blue fairy, who becomes her best friend and watches over and encourages her. But as Enjella learns to fly tooth-fairy routes and tries to introduce her innovations for computerizing the fairy trade, things never go smoothly, and she flits from one adventure to another, until she finally faces her biggest challenge: the fairy equivalent of a court martial for interacting with a child. The Fairy Vocabulary list, which seems intended to help younger readers, includes invented words unique to Sparkleshire and a list of difficult vocabulary by chapter, but it’s not very useful because it lacks definitions and misses some obvious candidates for inclusion (such as molar, bicuspids and grandeur), with the result that this book will challenge the readers who are most likely to enjoy and relate to a story of a girl outwitting the meanies and coming into her own.

Fun, fairy adventures for tweens who appreciate frills, sparkles and a clever female protagonist.