3 out of 4 stars
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Please note: This is a review of the Audible version of this book only, NOT the physical book.
We all have stories about tooth issues. Whether it's dental issues of our own or a family member or friend who didn't brush their teeth enough, didn't floss, didn't visit the doctor every 6 months or just ate too many sweets, it seems impossible for anyone to get through life without knowing someone who works as a living example of the importance of tooth care. Despite this, many of us (myself included) somehow miss the important message and end up with issues of our own anyway.
Blue in the Tooth: Teeth Hygiene with a Colour Therapy Twist! by Esther Loftus Gough is an attempt to break that vicious cycle. It even comes with its own tale of horror: Johnny's mother tells him that his Auntie Bertie had all of her teeth fall out! Blue in the Tooth is about Blue, a baby canine tooth, and also features Pearl (a molar) and Onyx (an incisor) who are on either side of him. The story begins with Johnny (the owner of these and other teeth) brushing his teeth and the narrator explaining that he does it at least twice a day. But then he stops, and at first Blue is happy that the "hygenic humdrum" is over, but as the days go by Johnny continues neglecting his tooth care and eating sweets. Blue begins to ache, but in the end his mom forces him to brush again and Blue suddenly feels all better!
As I mentioned, this review is focused entirely on the Audible version of this book. I didn't get a look at the story, which appears to be a children's picture book. The Audible file doesn't include an eBook companion, which is a shame as I'm assuming the story is more effective with the images. The cover was certainly cute, but I feel that the "Colour Therapy" portion of the book would've been better shown than merely told. As it is, I assuming the Colour Therapy was from the descriptions of things - Blue is a tooth that feels blue when he isn't brushed after a while, Pearl is a wonderful color for a good tooth and Onyx is a "proud upright incisor". This last one threw me off a bit though - while Onyx can certainly give an image of an upright tooth, the image isn't a shiny white one, it's a black, rotten one since onyx is typically black. Seeing these images in the book may have cleared things up, but just listening threw me off a bit with my expectations.
The book is narrated by Christel Cowdrey, who has done two other audiobooks (including another audiobook for Esther Loftus Gough about Auntie Bertie!). She has a gentle, fun reading voice with an English accent that sounded very much like having a mother read the book. She uses voices for different characters making it clear who's saying what, and even things that could've been annoying without the images were nicely done (like describing in detail how toothpaste or foods swoosh around in Johnny's mouth and how he "brush brush brush"es). The entire audio is under 8 minutes long, including her narration of the cover and the pages before and after the story itself.
On its own, I have a hard time rating this Audible a perfect score. The writing was wonderful, the narration was great and there were no grammatical errors to speak of as it was an audio story. On the down side, I really felt like the story was missing out by not having a companion version to look at. I also found the idea of Blue becoming immediately less achy after a single brushing a little off, as it makes it sound like one can go days without brushing and then just brush when their teeth ache. I almost definitely give this a perfect 4 and recommend it with the companion, assuming the art inside remained as nice as the art on the cover and the text isn't difficult to read, but without a companion my rating is 3 out of 4 stars. If you want to teach your kids about the importance of brushing their teeth and they can focus on audio alone I'd recommend this, but otherwise I'd say go for the physical version (which, again, I haven't seen) or get both separately if you can.
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Blue in the tooth,
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