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An occasional series of brief posts on the 2015 AML Award nominees.
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I’m not familiar with the work of writer Kate Coombs, but illustrator Jake Parker is a friend of mine whom I’ve written about before. This book puts all his skills to use. In fact, I would say this is his best picture book to date. Coombs’s story is a perfect match for his skills.
The story is of Nathan who does not want the Tooth Fairy to take his teeth. He tries hiding, he tries reasoning—she keeps taking his teeth and leaving a dollar behind. She has a job and she does it well.
Coombs is wise to play things straight. Everything is plain and understated (except, perhaps (and suitably), the insanely over-the-top bureaucratic mumbojumbo the Tooth Fairy cites). Parker follows her lead, and even as the conflict escalates, even as the stakes get higher and higher, the visual jokes are never forced either.
But when the Tooth Fairy brings in the big guns, well! I turned the page and started—I kid you not—guffawing. This is hilarious stuff. And then the diplomats arrive (including the cousin of a Hugo Earhart sidekick) and the story is resolved into a pleasant denouement, a perfectly paced wagonride downhill from the conflict’s climax.
A perfect piece of picture-book comedy.
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