The Toothless Tooth Fairy by Shanelle Hicks and Anca Delia Budeanu is a picturebook about a Tooth Fairy contest for the best smile. Bella is the nicest, and prettiest tooth fairy and everyone is sure that she will win the contest. Zelda, a not so nice fairy, does everything she can to ruin Bella's chances the meaning of true beaty is revealed.
The Toothless Tooth Fairy has a cute story, nice illustrations, and a few good messages. Bella is the perfect tooth fairy. She is sweet, kind, and of course beautiful. However, when Zelda uses some magic dust to cause an accident Bella loses a tooth and decides that she cannot win a beautiful smile contest without the missing tooth. Not too thrilled with that reliance on beauty, the evil cackling by Zelda, or pure little Bella's leaving IOU's while pulling out kids teeth, but in the end everyone is shown that inner beauty is more important than physical beauty. There is still a bit of a odd feeling that the story makes appearance very important, despite the message about inner beauty, more so than the kindness or intelligence that I want my daughter to value. I do give the book points for lovely artwork and including a very diverse cast of fairies.
The Toothless Tooth Fairy was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I loved the artwork, the diverse group of characters, and the intended message. However, I think the message lost a little bit of it's impact because of the sheer importance of both Bella and Zelda's appearance, even at the very end.
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