cover image Sweet Tooth

Sweet Tooth

Laura Montenegro. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), $14.95 (1pp) ISBN 978-0-395-68078-0

""We were clowns, my father and I, in our own family circus,"" opens this fanciful tale about a girl and her lion. In lyrical yet curiously formal first-person narration, the child describes the highlight of the performance: ``I beat the drum and we pull back the curtain for Sweet Tooth, my most beautiful lion."" But Sweet Tooth is a frisky fellow; before long his antics get him in trouble and he is banished him from the circus. The girl no longer beats her drum ``with feeling"" and the audience realizes that the performers' ""hearts were not in it."" She and her father sell their circus and ""finish out the winter sleeping on the cold, cold ground."" Humans and lion are dramatically reunited as Montenegro (One Stuck Drawer) softly delivers her message about the rejuvenating power of friendship and the importance of loyalty. More immediate are her luminous, stylized illustrations, which take playful liberties with perspective. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)