Amina’s family is visiting relatives in Mali, and she’s hopeful that her loose tooth will fall out before they have to return home to Oregon. In Mali, her father explained, children who lose a tooth are given a chicken by the African tooth fairy. Amina is thrilled when she wakes up one morning and discovers a space where her tooth used to be. Later that day she finds not one chicken but two—a hen and a rooster—under a calabash gourd. Soon the hen has laid eggs, and just before Amina leaves for America the first chick hatches. Marvelous details of the time Amina spends with her extended family—things they do, foods they eat—enliven this story grounded in her appealing, first-person voice. Penned by teenager Penda Diakité, about her younger sister’s experiences on one of their family trips to Mali, the picture book is illustrated by Baba Wagué Diakité, the father of both girls. The elder Diakité’s richly hued artwork, comprised of hand-painted ceramic tiles, features his trademark elements of whimsy. (Ages 4–8)

One of the most important markers in every child’s life is losing a tooth. When Amina and her family land in Mali after a trip of “two days, three planes, and three different continents” (n.p.), she realizes her first tooth is loose. Her father explains that in Mali, the African tooth fairy replaces the tooth with a chicken. After much anticipation, the tooth finally falls out. A dismayed Amina spends her day checking under the calabash with little success. Will the tooth fairy ever arrive? Pair with Selby Beeler and G. Brian Karas’s Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions from Around the World (Houghton Mifflin, 1998) and Roseanne Thong and Elisa Kleven’s Wish: Wishing Traditions around the World (Chronicle, 2008) for a discussion of traditions in many nations. lmp

While visiting her father's family in Mali, a young girl loses a tooth, places it under a calabash, and receives a hen and a rooster from the African Tooth Fairy.