BookDragon Blog

Young Marissa wakes one morning with a toothache – too much candy does have painful consequences! So it’s off to the dentist instead of school. She experiences the morning hustle bustle of a busy city, careful to hold her mother’s hand tightly. The most “unusual” sight she sees is a seated man: “In front of him was an open shoe box with money inside.”

In the dentist’s waiting room, she again notices the man sitting still on the busy street below. “Most people walked by the man. Some people, just a few, dropped coins into his shoe box. One man in a hurry actually stepped over the man.”

Marissa loses her rotten tooth in the dentist’s chair, and gets it back in an orange envelope, with a reminder to put it under her pillow that night. “‘Is there really a tooth fairy?'” she asks her mother …

So far, this is a sweet, predictable story, right?

Here comes the kicker. Back on the street, Marissa pulls away from her mother, and drops her tooth into the homeless man’s shoe box. “‘Put it under your pillow tonight … and there will be money there tomorrow,'” she explains to him. And the book’s final line: “Now all he needed … was a pillow.”

I don’t know if the youngest will ‘get it,’ but parents certainly will … what a slice of wrenching reality! Additionally, to underscore the disconnect of our crazy lives, illustrator Manon Gauthier uses color only for Marissa and her mother, and the people with whom they directly interact – the dentist, his assistant … and the homeless man. Everyone else is rendered anonymously in shades of gray, black, and white, as if we just don’t see one another, recognize one another.

For parents hoping to shield young kids from ‘reality’ as long as possible, this title is a sobering, beautifully presented reminder of our children’s wisdom, their trusting humanity, and how they navigate the un-understandable parts of their daily lives. Read this book together: that one little tooth certainly has much to teach us all.

Readers: Children

Published: 2010