Accept No Substitutes! Silverlicious by Victoria Kann

DEAR TOOTH FAIRY,

TODAY MY SWEET TOOTH CAME OUT. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

COULD YOU PLEASE SEND ME SOMETHING SWEET TO EAT UNTIL A NEW TOOTH COMES IN?

LOVE,
PINKALICIOUS

When Pinkalicious loses her first baby tooth in the cookie she swipes from her brother Peter, she figures that that tooth must have been her sweet tooth. Suddenly nothing sweet tastes yummy. But Pinkie is never one to let grass grow under her feet. Snatching up her pinktastic pen and pinktastic stationery, she pops off a missive to the Tooth Fairy asking for help. Pinkalicious makes plans to stay awake all night and score a snapshot of the famous fairy.

But when her pink alarm clock rings "P-I-I-I-I-N-K!" the next morning, she wakes to find she's missed her midnight visitor. Her bedroom is decorated with hearts and arrows, with roses and Valentine garlands everywhere, and the note she finds is NOT from the Tooth Fairy. It seems that that eminent emissary has been called away to an dental emergency in New Zealand and has sent a sub, Carlos Cupid. Carlos has left some cinnamon hearts, but when she tastes them, they're sizzling, not sweet. Pinkalicious is perplexed.

Undaunted, she writes another note, politely thanking Carlos for the candy, but firmly requesting that she get a visit from the No. 1 dental delegate. But the next morning her room is eggs-travagantly elegant with Easter baskets, Easter eggs, baby chicks, chains of tulips, with a personal note from the Tooth Fairy's second stand-in. "Eggs-cuse me," Edgar Easter Bunny writes, pointing out that he's been eggs-tracted from his vacation in Egguador to fill in for the Tooth Fairy, called to other duties, and that he hopes she enjoys the jelly beans he's left for her to try.

But those jelly beans are eggs-zactly not what Pinkalicious wants. They taste terrible, and the persnickety Pinkie pens another piece of correspondence, demanding for a visit from the real deal. But the next morning, she awakens, wearing a crown of peppermint lollies, to a new scene. Her room has been decked with boughs of holly, garlands of greenery, a Yule tree, a plentitude of peppermint sticks, and a note signed by Elf #351, proposing that she give his peppermints a taste test.

Elf #351's peppermints don't pass muster; to Pinkalicious they taste like dried toothpaste. "GROSS!" she cries, stamping her foot angrily. Quickly she scribbles off a new note to her personal fairy, Tootheetina, asking her to restore her taste buds. But the next morning she finds nothing in her room but some silver coins and a note:

DEAR PINKALICIOUS,

SWEETNESS COMES FROM THE INSIDE.

WHEN YOU ARE SWEET, THE WORLD AND ALL THE DELICIOUS THINGS IN IT WILL BE SWEET TO YOU!

LOVE, TOOTHEETINA

P.S. DON'T FORGET TO BRUSH AND FLOSS AFTER EACH MEAL!

Sweets for the sweet is the message of New York Times best-selling author Victoria Kann's brand-new Silverlicious (Pinkalicious) (Harper, 2011). Tootheetina's silver-wrapped chocolates taste just fine as soon as our pastel protagonist shakes her mean mood and makes up for her cookie theft by sharing with her little brother. Sweetness returns to her life, and for the moment silver is the new color du jour!

An all-purpose homage to fantasy holiday characters, this clever story will doubtless pass the taste test for those legions of Pinkalicious fans who wait eagerly for each new book.