![]() First edition with the book's original title | |
Author | Francesca Simon |
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Original title | Horrid Henry and the Tooth Fairy |
Illustrator | Tony Ross |
Cover artist | Tony Ross |
Language | English |
Series | Horrid Henry |
Genre | Children's fiction |
Publisher | Orion |
Publication date | 1996 |
Publication place | Great Britain |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
ISBN | 978-1-85881-371-4 |
Preceded by | Horrid Henry and the Secret Club |
Followed by | Horrid Henry's Nits |
Horrid Henry: Tricking the Tooth Fairy, published from 2000 to 2019 as Horrid Henry Tricks The Tooth Fairy, is the third book of the Horrid Henry series. It was first published in 1996 as Horrid Henry and the Tooth Fairy. It was written by Francesca Simon and illustrated by Tony Ross.
Everyone in Horrid Henry's class had lost at least one tooth - except Henry himself. Just today, his younger brother, Perfect Peter, has lost a tooth. Henry decides to eat as many sweets as he can from his sweet jar, even though it is two days before "Sweet Day", when he is allowed to eat sweets. Henry's attempt proves fruitless when none of his teeth feel wobbly, and worse, his mouth, gums and stomach hurt. Desperate, Henry decides to trick the tooth fairy. Henry silently creeps into Peter's room during the night and steals the tooth Peter placed under his pillow. Henry is nearly caught by his mother, but manages to escape. The next morning, Henry doesn't find a pound coin from the tooth fairy, but Peter does instead. Henry learns from his mother that the tooth fairy checks the gap between the child's teeth. Henry realizes his mistake and places a piece of black paper over his mouth. At night, when he sleeps, he ties his finger to a fake vampire tooth (a substitute for the real one) to make sure that when the tooth fairy comes and takes his tooth, he gets woken up. The next morning, Henry receives a fake 50p coin and a letter from the tooth fairy, mocking him for his trick. Henry's mother calls him down and scolds him for eating all the sweets and tells him to eat apples instead. Henry takes an apple and bites on it. He eventually realises that the bite caused one of his teeth to fall out, and, to his horror, he also swallowed it. [1]
Horrid Henry's cousin, Prissy Polly, is marrying Pimply Paul. Henry has been chosen to be a pageboy, along with Perfect Peter, his brother. First, Henry's family has trouble with Henry's pageboy clothes as they are too "tight". Second, they have trouble with Henry going to the wedding and they drag him into the car to go. Worse still, they are caught in the middle of a thunderstorm. They arrive at the wedding later than everybody. While the priest says all the holy blessings and promises, Henry pretends to be a chef tossing pancakes, only he is tossing the wedding rings. When the rings are needed (which Henry accidentally loses), Henry gives them a toy pirate ring. Afterwards, when everyone takes wedding photos, Henry jumps in at the last moment and makes rude faces. A while later, during the reception, while everyone is eating their lunch, Henry secretly eats the wedding cake but Pimply Paul catches him. While Paul is chasing Henry, he leaps and lands into the cake. Henry's entire family thinks it's weird that there is no wedding cake...except for Henry! [2]
Moody Margaret moves into Henry's house for two weeks while her parents go on holiday. His room is given to Margaret, leaving him to sleep in Perfect Peter's room. When Margaret arrives, she immediately orders everyone to do spring cleaning. After that, everyone has dinner and Margaret consistently gets Henry into trouble. At bedtime, Margaret booby traps Henry's bed and stresses his parents by complaining. In the morning, Margaret blasts everyone out of bed with the noise from her trumpet, screams at the top of her voice to Mum and forces her to make breakfast for her. She finds Henry's secret biscuits and crisps and eats every single one. On Wednesday, Margaret bans everyone from playing tapes because it disturbs her. One Thursday, Margaret stops Henry from singing as it disturbs her. On Friday, she makes Henry stop breathing for a while as it disturbs her. Finally having had enough, Henry devises a plan to get rid of her. He calls Margaret's parents to come home at once from their holiday, claiming that Margaret is in an emergency. The plan works and Margaret is eventually sent home, but Peter reveals to Mum and Dad what Henry did, having heard him over the telephone. Rather then punish Henry for his actions, however, Mum just simply sends him to his room. Henry believes that sweeter words are never spoken. [3]
Horrid Henry is a teacher's worst nightmare, but not for Ninius Nerdon. When he is Henry's teacher, he demonstrates his resilience perfectly. He can backfire Henry's tricks on him and answer back to any statement that Henry gives. He never demonstrates irateness towards Henry and can even twist Henry's rude jokes into a nightmare for Henry. But when Henry makes him believe that Peter has fallen to his death out of an upstairs window, Mr. Nerdon faints and gets taken away in an ambulance. Henry, however, isn’t bothered about the fact that the even more notorious teacher (towards students) Miss Battle-Axe will be teaching his class from then on. [4]