In a deserted neighborhood, 10-year-old Dinah waits out a violent storm with her brother, sister, and older cousin, who distracts the kids with an original tale. His wild yarn, about a naive tooth fairy who becomes an iconoclast hero, is the bulk of this inventive novel. A friendless orphan, What-the-Dickens has little sense of his world until he meets tooth fairy Pepper, who helps him realize his own identity and talents as a tooth fairy. In turn, What-the-Dickens helps Pepper accomplish a challenging mission and shake up the strict hierarchy of her not-quite-benevolent tooth-fairy colony. The dual plots make for a crowded, disjointed whole, and the sophisticated language, complex colony rules, and literary references may elude some kids. But the wholly original premise, sharp characterizations, and dark-and-stormy setting will easily delight readers, especially older ones who will catch more of the gleefully dark humor, political parodies, and broad questions about magic and self-discovery: "Accidents and acts of the imagination. I guess that's how we make ourselves, and how we're made."

When a terrible storm (think Katrina) strands an inept young man with his highly sheltered cousins, he turns to storytelling to hold their fears at bay. What-the-Dickens is the protagonist of his story within the story; he is an orphaned skibberee (tooth fairy), and his search to belong is both poignant and humorous. From the start, What-the-Dickens attempts to find connections in a frightening world, and he repeatedly fails—such as his initial connection to a cat that would rather eat him—but he doesn't stop. When he does find other skibberee, his independent thinking nearly brings down the entire skibberee hierarchy, and he must flee with his one ally. The quirky humor is threaded with darker themes of loneliness and loss. While more mature than Maguire's Hamlet Chronicles, this bears the same hallmarks, including skillful use of language—precise, delightful turns of phrase and a conversational tone that perfectly enhances the subtext on the importance of storytelling. The endings for both the frame story and What-the-Dickens are happy, but not unalloyed. Overall, a winner for Maguire's fans of all ages. (Fantasy. 8-12)

More ambitious than many of Maguire’s (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Leaping Beauty; <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Wicked) previous works, this novel combines the author’s taste for the fairytale backstory with explorations of the values of storytelling. A contemporary narrative frame opens the book with a setting inspired by Hurricane Katrina: after a terrible storm brutalizes the region, the parents in a strict fundamentalist family have wagered outside, leaving their three children with rapidly diminishing supplies in the care of their 21-year-old English-teacher cousin, Gage. To divert them from their hunger and their anxiety, Gage spends an entire night telling them about a “skibberee” (tooth fairy) who grows up on its own and only by chance discovers that the presence of other skibbereen. Dense with allusion, metaphor and pun, Maguire’s prose shines, compensating literary-minded readers for the slow start of the skibberee story. By the time the urgency of the skibberee story matches that of the framing tale, however, Maguire’s agenda emerges in its complexity. Each of the characters takes a different approach to Gage’s story: Dinah, the 10-year-old, needs the magic that Gage’s tale delivers; her older brother claims to need to eschew its fancy, in favor of his parents’ teachings about faith and reason; Gage needs story to exist; and the youngest, who celebrates her second birthday, needs the wish the story promises. Comic scenes, elaborate tableaux and suspenseful sequences will entertain readers who prefer more straightforward fiction, but those readers may be frustrated by the unresolved ending. Ages 10-13. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Oct.)

Gr 5-8-In the midst of a Katrina-like disaster, 10-year-old Dinah and her siblings, teenager Zeke and toddler Rebecca Ruth, find themselves cut off from society, with only their distant cousin for company. To distract the siblings from their predicament, Gage begins to tell them the story of the skibbereen, the creatures generally known as tooth fairies. His story focuses on What-the-Dickens, an orphaned skibberee whose adventures bring him into contact with a house cat, a bird, a tiger, and a variety of humans, including Gage himself. What-the-Dickens meets Pepper, who takes him back to her colony, where he learns about his people's history and comes to understand their role in bringing wishes to humans. Maguire intersperses What-the-Dickens's story with that of Dinah and her family, interweaving the child's worries and experiences with those of the skibberee. The author's flair for language shows up in his detailed descriptions of characters and setting, such as What-the-Dickens's hair that "flew everywhere, as if eager to get off his scalp." The siblings' problems meeting their basic needs ring true, and their relationships with one another add depth to the story. There's much here to appeal to both Maguire's younger and older fans, and the immediacy of the story and combination of fantasy and reality will grip even reluctant readers.-Beth L. Meister, Pleasant View Elementary School, Franklin, WI Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Set within a post-Katrina-like frame story, Maguire's layered tale illustrates how art and imagination help shape perceptions of reality. Ten-year-old Dinah and her family live purposely isolated from the allures of the twenty-first century, hoping to fortify their faith through a simple life. But when a terrible storm cuts them off from parents and rescue, Dinah and her siblings must rely on cousin Gage, who has proved himself only an "adequate miracle," to survive. Gage decides that a story will pass the time and ease fears. He introduces an orphan newborn, What-the-Dickens, trying to name the scary world he finds as he searches for a place to belong. Will it be with Mcavity the cat, old Granny Menace, or the skibbereens, a colony of tooth fairies? They do not want him either, but he hangs on through the adventure of helping Pepper "earn her wings" by trading coins for teeth. Dinah, Zeke, and baby Rebecca Ruth are not certain whether Gage's story will be enough of a distraction to relieve the fears and tensions around an uncertain future. It is just an act of imagination to stave off the dark-or is it? Not Maguire's first foray into fiction for a younger audience, this book grew from a short story, Gangster Teeth (Boston Globe, 2003). Readers also wonder what has stranded this family, and they empathize as the family members try to deal with the uncertainty and failure of trusted safety nets. The trauma and suffering of youngsters separated from safety, who find comfort and security through the power of story-the world of imagination feeling more real when unbearable reality makes one yearn to believe-gives shape to what might have been a light tale of a familiar conceit.-Mary Arnold.