Published by Candlewick Press
295 pages
What-the-Dickens is a story within a story. The story within was a fairy tale, and very nicely crafted. What-the-Dickens is a Skibberee, otherwise known as a tooth fairy. He is an orphan and hasn't learned his purpose in life until he meets Pepper, who brings him to her colony and shows him the ways of the Skibberren.
The fairy tale was original, quirky, and had some nice dialogue. What-the-Dickens was a lovable character.
On the other hand, the story that started the fairy tale I didn't care for at all. It was very vague and unsatisfying. Three children, Zeke, Dinah, and Rebecca Ruth, are abandoned in their home with an older cousin, perhaps during a hurricane? You never quite know what's going on, I think on purpose. While the power is out and they have no food in the house (how is that possible to run out of food for just a few days of hurricane? Most people have a few things in the cupboard), their cousin Gage tells the story of What-the-Dickens. The young girl, Dinah, didn't sound like any ten-year-old I've ever known, homeschooled or not.
I also found it degrading that the children were homeschoolers whose fanatical parents have isolated from town, no TV, and nothing but severe Christian books for reading material. It put into focus what many people's concern is about homeschooling, that they're all isolationists, when it's usually the exact opposite. It portrays homeschoolers in a bad light.
Overall, I gave the book a 2. The main storyline really brought it down, though the fairy tale itself I might have given a 3.5.
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