Tooth fairy in training

Many kinds of animals have teeth. Why should humans be the only ones to get attention from a tooth fairy? Tate is being trained in fairy stealth by her older sister, May, who reviews the rules: lift the pillow, leave the coins, and do not wake the sleeper. On their first night out, they begin at a lake, where Tate must retrieve a tooth from a baby hippo. In a series of challenges, Tate visits a crocodile, narwhal, and seal. The fairy-in-training handles them all, but she's concerned about her next assignment, an anaconda. After making her escape, Tate is relieved that their final stop is a little girl's bedroom. She's sure the transaction will be easy, until the girl a doll-collecting fairy kisser wakes up, and Tate learns that her fears may have been misplaced! Pencil illustrations, colored digitally, provide great detail about the story's varied characters and locations. This magical tale has plenty of sweetness and sparkle to satisfy fairy fans, along with a bit of bite to appeal to a wider audience.--Lucinda Whitehurst Copyright 2019 Booklist

Becoming a tooth fairy involves visits to many toothy creatures.Tate, the titular tooth fairy-in-training, narrates the rhyming text as her big sister, May, teaches her how to retrieve kids' teeth and leave them coins. The twist, telegraphed by the undersea imagery in the cover art, comes when May brings Tate to a lake because a "baby hippo needs a visit. / Not every child's a human, is it?" Brave Tate perseveres through visits to a crocodile, a fierce-looking seal, and "a MASSIVE anaconda," her expressive, light-brown face betraying the jitters underlying her bravery. The last visit is to a human child. "A little girl. I can't go wrong," narrates Tate, so of course, this is where drama ensues. It's light drama, however, befitting the gentle, cartoon style of the illustrations, which give characters' facial features a look similar to Crockett Johnson's Harold (of purple-crayon fame). "I had to get caught by Melissa / a doll-collecting fairy kisser," Tate laments as she squirms in wakeful, white-appearing Melissa's hands, the backdrop a bedroom filled with fairy dolls, a dollhouse, and other whimsical toys and dcor. Tate's magic wand does the trick of getting Melissa back to sleep, and then she and May return home, triumphant, to rest up for their next trip.A fresh take on tooth-fairy lore. (Picture book. 5-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.