Baby Teeth

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For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. She knew what he was seeing: the daughter, lost in her own head; the mother, a carefully groomed, but wound-up mess. and maybe she shouldn't yell, but there were endless reasons — small and large — why she'd needed to. When it’s decided that he absolutely must run this errand, a long conversation about how Alex can prepare Suzette to defend herself ensues. Despite the increasing prevalence of stay-at-home dads, a bad-seed novel in which a father’s insight into his child is superior to the mother’s doesn’t yet seem to exist.

Resentful of her mother’s rules and attentions, Hanna lashes out in anger, becoming more aggressive every day. Frustrated and fragile stay-at-home mom Suzette and seven-year-old Hanna alternately narrate a cascade of crises stemming from Hanna’s near-total refusal to speak, her mistrust of her mom and adoration of her dad, and the parents’ frantic attempts to find a solution to Hanna’s increasingly dangerous tantrums. I think that is why I found this book to very chilling, disturbing, and enthralling – because the stories that scare me the most are the ones that present a very possible reality.The difficulty of separating behavior that is typical, or at least relatively common, from actual deviance may make us wonder about our own capacity to cross the fine line between minor misdeeds and true criminality.

Hanna pretended to be unaware of Suzette beside her, and she read the usual rebuke in Hanna’s refusal to look at her. Told from alternating perspectives of a mother and daughter, the novel gives us a glimpse into the not-so-perfect reality of a should-be ideal family. With Zoje Stage’s background in filmmaking and scriptwriting, I can definitely see how Baby Teeth came about. Author Stage palpably conveys Suzette's fear, anger, frustration, and desperation while exploring the deleterious effects that motherhood can have on one's marriage and self-worth. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Meg Grehan’s first book, The Space Between, won the Eilís Dillon Award at the 2018 Children’s Books Ireland Awards. The very thought of it made her start shaking her head until Hanna twitched, glancing at her with a soured frown as if she was already stinking up the room. Gabra Zackman read Hannah like she was growling through gritted teeth, but did the rest of the characters fittingly. Suzette held each part of her body too tightly — her crossed legs, her tense shoulders, her hands curled into fists.

Not that all medication is toxic, but like you said, society's so quick to find a pill for something, never mind the side effects. Nevertheless, she brought Hanna into the world, pleased and proud to start a family with her husband Alex.

Perhaps the creepiest thing about the “bad seed” story is the trickiness of distinguishing truly aberrant behavior from mere acting up. Author Zoje Stage has created quite a buzz with her novel and to me, the emotional force of the reactions by readers is fascinating. The level of disturbing unease over what those you love can hide from you gradually rises throughout the book, and gets EXTREMELY intense. The Deepest Breath was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, won the Judges’ Special Award at the KPMG–Children’s Books Ireland Awards 2020 and was selected for the Read for Empathy reading list 2020.