The Tooth Fairy

Picture-book collectors and parents of preschoolers will surely want to find a space on their bookshelves for this splendid work. As in Collington's The Angel and the Soldier Boy and On Christmas Eve, exquisite, minutely detailed art relays a wordless story. When a girl loses a tooth at bedtime, she places it in a tiny ""tooth box"" that she slides under her pillow. Soon a tiny fairy wearing an ethereal white dress and a crown of roses flies from her home within the trunk of a tree to a trap door hidden in the forest floor. It leads to a cavernous mine, where-using a large furnace to melt the metal and a mold to shape it-she fashions a silver coin. At last the fairy enters the girl's room, retrieves the small box and exchanges the coin for the tooth. Readers of all ages will be delighted to learn exactly what this dedicated fairy does with the newly fetched tooth in the inventive, heartwarming conclusion. Somewhat out of sync with the elegant feel of the book, the final page contains a tooth box and coin to be cut out and assembled. Ages 4-8. (Aug.)