A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of 2023!A 2024 USBBY Outstanding International Book!
Selected for the Evanston Public Library "101 Great Books for Kids List: 2023 Edition"
Oh, I just love this! Ive heard of teeth mice before and Ive even seen books about different losing-your-teeth traditions from around the world. Still Ive never seen a really really really good book on the subject before. Now, at long last, I think I have. This covers traditional tooth mouse folktales, sure, but it also acknowledges how times change and how people, and traditions, have to adapt. If you dont live in houses with roofs then throw your tooth in the fireplace. There arent fireplaces now? Then put the teeth under your pillow! And then to weave in other tooth fairy/insect ideas as well? Fantastico. A thorough winner from start to finish. Betsy Bird, A Fuse 8 Production (a School Library Journal blog)
An examination of that universal milestone signaling maturationlosing a tooththat also offers a tongue-in-cheek history of tooth collection Lopizs softly textured compositions, populated by Lionni-esque rodents, offer whimsical scenes that readers will linger over. In a brilliant parody of Diego Velazquezs Las Meninas, Perezs daughters, decked out in cupcake liner skirts, confer in a candy shop that mirrors the setting of its inspiration. Herreros experience as a professional storyteller comes through clearly. Although the text, translated from Spanish and drawing from actual Spanish myths, may seem wordy, Herreros deadpan tone, second-person form of address, and folktale cadences will keep listeners rapt. A deeply humorous, beautifully imaginative celebration of growing up. Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
When baby teeth fall out, why do children put them under their pillows? Why do parents sneak in at night and swap the teeth for money? To judge from the fanciful history told in The Amazing and True Story of Tooth Mouse Perez, such rituals began as a means of ensuring that nice straight adult teeth would grow in As time passed and houses got taller, we learn how the practice evolved into the custom we know today from the career of one Tooth Mouse Perez, who moved to Madrid at the end of the 19th century with his family. In Violeta Lopizs soft-edged, humorous illustrations, we see the Perez mouselings in a tableau modeled on the Velazquez painting Las Meninas, with the girl-mice wearing full skirts made of cupcake wrappers. This chatty and inventive account for 5- to 9-year-olds, which is translated from the Spanish by Sara Lissa Paulson and draws on an old Spanish narrative, eventually migrates, as it were, to other countries, presenting a witty and unexpected origin story for the creature we call the Tooth Fairy. Wall Street Journal
"Warm, densely textured drawings by Lopiz provide notes of cheery surrealism, as a Tooth Mouse wears a chefs toque the size of a molar and winged entities dance across the surface of a vinyl record."Publishers Weekly
"Warm, pencil-textured illustrations feature Leonni-style mice as well as surprising hiding spots for molars that will keep readers engaged... Offer[s] a whimsical and informative element to the folklore collections of upper elementary libraries."School Library Journal
