NICE TRY, TOOTH FAIRY

As if having to collect all the world’s unattached baby teeth isn’t hard enough, some children want them back. Young Emma’s polite request to borrow her tooth to show Grandpa brings a succession of not-quite-right substitutes, from an elephant’s tusk to a hedgehog’s sand-grain–sized nubbin—and a train of original owners charging into her bedroom to reclaim them. Using richly colored oils, Tillotson (Songs of Papa's Island, not reviewed) illustrates this epistolary episode with close-up views of a matronly sprite with a distinctly harried air, and a rumpled redhead in purple pajamas who gratefully sends a thank-you note—and another tooth—when the frantic fairy finally gets it right. Children will enjoy this merry romp, Olson’s debut, and if they want to know what the tooth fairy does with all those teeth, look for answers in, among other books, Peter Collington’s Tooth Fairy (not reviewed) or William Hooks’s Mystery of the Missing Tooth (not reviewed). (Picture book. 6-8)