Karen's Toothache (Baby-Sitters Little Sister) by Ann Matthews Martin

Synopsis: Karen Brewer notices her tooth slowly hurting, but she doesn't take it too seriously. For you see, Karen starts watching Madame Valerie predict futures on TV, and after discovering "Your Daily Horoscope" section in the newspaper, Karen decides to become a fortune teller and tell the future of all her friends in Ms. Colman's class. When she notices her predictions coming true, Karen has too much fun to take her toothache seriously.

One day, when Ms. Colman announces that they are having an Autumn Leaves party in class, Karen and her friends have lots of fun decorating fall leaves, and baking fall shaped cookies. However, when Karen takes a bite of the cookie, her tooth aches a lot. Ms. Pazden, the school nurse informs Karen's mother about her toothache.

Dr. Rice, the family dentist, tells Karen that she needs to see Dr. Celenza to have her tooth pulled. Karen is not thrilled about this because she doesn't know what kind of a person Dr. Celenza would be, and she doesn't want to have her tooth pulled out either! As if this wasn't a problem, Karen declares that she has a fortune about Ms. Colman to the entire class, as a way to get their attention, but is not sure if the fortune will come true or not.

Can Karen survive her trip to the dentist, and make sure the fortunes she tells comes true, so that she doesn't get into trouble?

Review: I thought this was another fun book to read in the series. I actually enjoyed the fortuneteller part of the story more than the toothache/dentist part, because it was a lot of fun reading the various predictions Karen made for her friends. However, Karen's visit to Dr. Celenza was also interesting to read, as we got to see how wrong Karen was about the dentist.

The high point of the book for me was Karen announcing Ms. Colman's fortune to the class, because she wasn't sure if the prediction would come true or not, and it was surprising to see how the students responded to Ms. Colman's situation. But, I was also slightly disappointed with this part, because even after the students find out the truth about Ms. Colman, Karen doesn't get punished for giving out false information. She doesn't even get lectured on how dangerous making up facts could be in such situations.

The illustrations drawn by Susan Tang added well to the story, and I like the pictures where Karen is dressed as a fortuneteller and is giving out her friend's fortunes in school.

Overall, this was a nice addition to the Little Sister series, and I am looking forward to reading more.

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good book, July 18, 2005
By Kid's Review

in the beginning of the book karen is learning about the fall season and her class bakes leaf shaped cookies and does arts and crafts and her tooth starts hurting all day and then at the big house it was hurting so she goes to the dentist and finds out she has to have it pulled and is so scared that she hides to avoid the appointment the first time it was scheduled. I can relate because I was scared of going to the dentist too when I was 7 and had a problem similar to karen's. I liked reading about karen being a fortune teller for her classmates and about the space themed dentist's office.

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