It's the story of What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee who is working as an Agent of Change--trading coins for teeth--and learns that there is a dutiful tribe of skibbereen (call them tooth fairies) to which he hopes to belong. As his tale of discovery unfolds, however, both What-the-Dickens and Dinah come to see taht the world is both richer and less sure than they ever imagined.

From the bound galley:

Meet What-the-Dickens, a rogue tooth fairy and Gregory Maguire's most captivating character since his reinvention of Elphaba in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West!

When ten-year-old Dinah and her two siblings are trapped by a terrible storm, cousin Gage keeps up their spirits with an unlikely fantasy--that skibbereen, aka tooth fairies, live in warring colonies right in your neighborhood, colonies devoted to the planting and harvesting of your teeth. Dinah is skeptical at first, but stories told by candlelight on nights when the real world has become unbearable have a way of becoming real, and Dinah starts to--wants to--believe. Don't we all?

Gregory Maguire is America's premier interpreter of the fairy-tale world. He lives with his family outside Boston, Massachusetts.