The Amazing and True Story of Tooth Mouse Pérez

Via a lengthy reportorial account, the creators of The True Story of a Mouse Who Never Asked for It present a thorough faux-documentary about the Spanish Tooth Mouse, whose job was to collect and replace lost baby teeth with adult versions “as strong and straight as mice teeth.” Herreros traces changes in custom from people throwing lost baby teeth up onto rooftops, to leaving them in a chimney or stovepipe, to tucking them underneath children’s pillows. The narrative also recounts the story—documented, it indicates, by a priest for a young Spanish prince—of a 19th-century Tooth Mouse, who lived in a candy store on a fashionable Madrid street and acquired the surname Pérez. Subsequent pages describe the growing Pérez family, an eventual alliance with the Tooth Ants of Italy, and the immigration of the resultant winged beings to the U.S., where they were perceived as tooth fairies. Warm, densely textured drawings by Lópiz provide notes of cheery surrealism, as a Tooth Mouse wears a chef’s toque the size of a molar and winged entities dance across the surface of a vinyl record. Across the woolgathering prose, one thing is certain: losing teeth, Herreros writes, signifies “the gift of growing up.” An author’s note concludes. Ages 7–10. (Mar.)