Loose Tooth

by Anastasia Suen, Ezra Jack Keats, Allan Etzen (Illustrator)

It's class photo day, and Peter has a looth tooth. If he loses the tooth, his smile will have a hole in it, just like in last year's picture. Then again, he'll get money from the tooth fairy, which would help him buy a new basketball!

Genres: Childrens, Sports, Basketball, Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2002

About the author

From her studio in Northern California, developmental editor Anastasia Suen reads, writes, and edits books for creators of all ages.

Reviews

[Danette · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/19/18 Read with Naomi, Julia, & Simon

[Pinky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter loses his tooth for Picture Day thanks to a basketball game.

[Rosa Cline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another very good "Peter" book by Mr Ezra Jack Keats. Ms Suen took the much loved characters from Mr Keats Peter books and made sweet stories children can relate to.

Peter gets on the school bus with his friends and they discuss that it's picture day at school. They all want to look their best but Peter has a loose tooth. He doesn't want to loose a tooth and have a gap in his photo AGAIN like last year. But his friends all tell him that with the money he gets from the tooth fairy that he can get his basketball he's been saving up for.

They get to school and want to play ball before the bell rings. Another group of kids has the ball but Peter and his friends have the court. So they decide to play together. They enjoy the game but at the end Peter got knocked down and he looses his tooth after all. His friends all wonder how he's gonna respond about loosing it before his picture...but he grins and says "I can get my basketball now" So he finds the good out of his situation.

[Chak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ages 5-7

I was confused by this book. The premise is that a boy has a loose tooth and he's worried about it falling out on this particular day because his school picture will be taken today. He didn't want a gap in his smile, like last year. Um, once you loose one tooth, won't you have a gap for a while? Did his entire adult tooth come in before the next one fell out? I know I shouldn't have gotten caught up in that, but that question really distracted me. I'm one of those, ok?

I did like that there was some conflict in the book - between the kids that were the main characters friends and a group of mildly rival bigger kids. Our heroes faced them confidently and never gave up, though they seemingly were trounced.

The kid loses his tooth after all, but he's comfortable with it.

Overall, it was a decent book, but it just didn't grab me, what can I say.

[Katie Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anastasia Suen does a fantastic job on the easy reader books starring Ezra Jack Keats’s characters. In this episode, Peter has a loose tooth on school picture day and hopes it will hold out until after his picture is taken so he won’t look silly in the photo. A basketball game on the playground leads to the loss of the tooth, however, and Peter, deciding to look on the bright side, smiles for his picture anyway. I always like books about universal experiences such as losing teeth. I especially like this one because of its positive message - things might not go your way every time, but that doesn’t have to be the end of the world. I definitely want to look up some more of Suen’s work after reading this one.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good story for children in Kindergarten through second grade. They start to lose their teeth at that time and may have some frustration with how their smile looks. Our girls are thrilled to lose their teeth and show off their gap-toothed smiles proudly to the camera, but others may be more shy. In this story, Peter doesn't want to have a tooth missing for his school pictures. It's a good story and a faithful follow-on to Ezra Jack Keats's original tales about Peter.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not what I anticipated when I picked it up from the library. I expected it to be primarily about losing a tooth. Some of it was about that and Peter's anxiety about having a "window" where his lost tooth will be for picture day at school. Instead, the majority of pages in the book describe a basketball game between Peter and his friends and another group of kids from the school. Maybe a good bet if you have a child with a loose tooth who is also into basketball a lot? Not a huge hit with my kids. Good for a one-time read and return to the library.

[Brooke Birchler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a very easy read but I felt like the story jumped around a lot. The title is "Loose Tooth" and the book starts out with a child talking about his loose tooth and then they go to play basketball. The rest of this story discusses a basketball game with no mention of the tooth until the very end when the child looses it. This book isn't bad for a child to read, but it wouldn't be one that I'd recommend.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

cute book with great illustrations!