Rotten Teeth

Speaking in front of the class isn't easy for small people like Melissa Herman. Especially when there's nothing very special to say about her house or her family or herself. But with the help of her older brother, Melissa borrows a bottle from her father's dental office to take to show and tell. The teacher is appalled, but the children are intrigued.

David Catrow's hilariously zany illustrations reveal that there is nothing ordinary about Melissa Herman, or her house or her family. The bright artwork is laugh-aloud funny and will have children begging to hear the story again, or maybe invent their very own tale.

Publishers Weekly

First-grader Melissa Hermann needs something for show and tell. In her dentist dad's office, with the help of her brother Norman she finds a bottle full of pulled teeth. Melissa carefully washes enough teeth to give one to every member of her class, then disguises the bottle in a brown bag. In a suspenseful scene--rendered even more dramatic by a worm's-eye view of desks and gaping students--Melissa slinks to the front of the classroom with her prize and stands there nervously. "Finally she opened up the bag, held up the bottle, and blurted out, `ROTTEN TEETH! FROM REAL MOUTHS!' " With just a dash of hyperbole, Simms (The Bone Man) explains how the teeth horrify Melissa's teacher but enhance the girl's popularity among her peers. At recess, Melissa captivates her audience with gruesome tales of dentistry and learns the power of storytelling. If Simms's intent is to banish shyness, Catrow's (Westward Ho, Carlotta!) goal is to catapult a humorous story into the realm of the tall tale. He boosts the irony by providing Melissa with ample show-and-tell oddities; her home not only houses a dentist's office but is a Victorian curiosity shop of bizarre decorations (a boar's head, a prehistoric skull) and living oddities (a monkey, an elephant, a Venus flytrap). Catrow tints his over-the-top watercolor illustrations with dental-decay-inspired yellows and greens, and he dresses his gawky, frizzy-haired characters in ridiculously mismatched clothes. This not-for-the-squeamish volume should impress future fans of Southern gothic. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

Laura Simms really did bring a bottle of rotten teeth to school for show and tell. And she really did discover she could tell good stories. Now an internationally known storyteller, she has performed and taught in major festivals, symposiums, and conferences around the world. She started the first storytelling programs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. When she isn't touring the country telling stories, she lives in New York City.

DAVID CATROW is a political cartoonist and the illustrator of many popular books for children, including the Book Sense 76 Top Ten selection Don't Take Your Snake for a Stroll by Karin Ireland. He lives in Springfield, Ohio.