Tell the Tooth! Anybody seen a missing royal tooth? (Little Princess: I Want My Tooth - Tony Ross)

Member Name: jo1976

Product:	Little Princess: I Want My Tooth - Tony Ross
Date:	12/02/09 (210 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very funny, bright illustrations, good to talk to children about their teeth falling out.

Disadvantages: Too much text for my six year old to read unaided

'I Want My Tooth' is part of a range of Little Princess stories written by Tony Ross. The Little Princess is now also a TV series shown on Channel Five, so I suspect this series of books will be a popular fixture in lots of household with young children. (In fact, the back cover tells me that over million copies of Little Princess stories have been sold so far.)

A Little Princess story might seem a bit of a strange choice for a household full of boys, but I picked this up from the library the other week as we had previously enjoyed a story in the series (I Want My Dinner.) Both my boys seem to like the Little Princess character, perhaps because she can be a little bit cheeky and naughty at times and makes for interesting bedtime reading!

As I've come to expect from Tony Ross books, this one is a great read about the princess and her royal teeth and it has a really funny twist at the end that I genuinely didn't predict was coming! I won't spoil it by revealing the outcome here but it did bring a smile to our faces the first time we read this. This particular title was chosen because teeth are a big theme in our house, as the tooth fairy has visited twice recently to collect my oldest son's two front teeth - much to his excitement! (The tooth fairy hasn't been affected by the credit crunch, luckily, and still pays a going rate of £1 per tooth!) Naturally, my oldest had great fun reading about the Little Princess and her wobbly tooth which, surprise, surprise, falls out during the course of the story. If your child is at a similar stage, this story should go down well.

Having read a different Little Princess story recently, I was hoping that this one would contain the same sort of language and be just as easy to read. Unfortunately, 'I Want My Tooth' contains a little too much text for my son to read unaided and he became frustrated with the number of words that he needed help with, so it isn't ideal for your average Year One pupil to read alone. (I'm not trying to push my son with his reading - I'd rather build up his confidence and enjoyment of reading by letting him read stories with simple text.) This particular story became more of a chore than a pleasure for him to read, although he was more than happy for me to take over and discover just where the Little Princess's lost tooth had ended up!

As a story to be read to young children or for a slightly older child to read alone, I would definitely recommend this book. It has a lovable main character, nice teeth-related story and it is beautifully illustrated with humourous pictures on every page. RRP is £5.99 but it is currently available on Amazon for under £5 including postage and packing.

Summary: Great read for Little Princesses and Little Princes everywhere!