The Tooth Fairy by Peter Collington

Tuesday Treasure

Wordless, textless or silent books often contain very complex stories and if you take your time and quietly sit and 'read' them you are sure to enjoy the experience. The Tooth Fairy by Peter Collington is one of my favourites.

A young girl has lost her tooth. She places it in a tooth box beside her pillow. Outside the house we see a tiny fairy leaving her tree trunk home carrying a small, brightly glowing, lantern. The fairy lands on the forest floor where she lifts a huge stone door. The door reveals a long winding staircase heading down into an underground cavern.  In the cavern there is a trolley car on a track. It is filled with a pick-axe and spade. The tiny girl pushes the cart over to the walls of the cave and she begins to chip away at the rock. She places the rock fragments into her cart and heads back to the large equipment we saw earlier which turns out to be a smelter or furnace. The rock fragments are silver and, wearing protective gloves, the fairy melts the silver which she then pours into a mould in the shape of a coin.

The fairy retraces her steps back to the forest above. She flies across to the window in a human home. The fairy retrieves the tooth from the tooth box that we saw on the opening page and places the silver coin in the box. The fairy is so quiet the girl does not even stir in her sleep.

Now our tooth fairy has the tooth but what does she plan to do with it? We can see the fairy enter her tree trunk home. She places the tooth in a vice and she carefully cuts out an intricate shape. spoiler alert (this book is out of print) so I am going to tell you why she needed that tooth. Our beautiful fairy in her gossamer white dress has made a new key for her piano. The close up picture of the keyboard shows this is the final key and now she can sit down and play beautiful music.

Another book by Peter Collington that I adore is The Angel and the Solider Boy.  Take a look at this video with music by Clannad and narration by Tom Conti. Take a look here to see the full range of books by Peter Collington.  Here are some other wordless/textless books you could explore: