Tangle Wrangle: Ella Kazoo Will Not Brush Her Hair by Lee Fox

ELLA KAZOO WILL NOT BRUSH HER HAIR!

SHE HIDES IN THE CUPBOARD AND UNDER THE STAIR.

SHE ROARS AT HER MOTHER LIKE A BIG GROWLY BEAR.

SHE WHINES AND MOANS AND SHE HOWLS IN DESPAIR.

BUT ELLA KAZOO WILL NOT BRUSH HER HAIR.

Ella's hair is a scraggly, tangly, lumpy, and thoroughly unattractive mop. Mom is at her wit's end:

IT LOOKS LIKE ELLA'S HEAD HAS A BIRD'S NEST ON TOP.
"OH, ELLA! THIS JUST HAS TO STOP!"

And finally even Ella has had enough. Her hair threatens to overwhelm her, her clothes, and even her room.

"MY GOODNESS!" CRIES ELLA, "THIS HAIR MUST BE CHOPPED.
MOST OF ALL, MOTHER, THIS HAIR MUST BE STOPPED!"

As most moms of little girls discover, the wrangle with the tangles is the first mother-daughter conflict every the morning, the on-going diurnal "battle of the hairbrush." But author Lee Fox's bouncy rhymes in Ella Kazoo Will Not Brush Her Hair (Walker, 2010) make light of this struggle in a most humorous way. The infectious rhythm and rhyme scheme of this little tale of the tangled tresses will attract even the staunchest hairbrush hater to listen and perhaps learn the lesson that Ella finally masters. A extra literary lesson also abounds in Fox's playful use of alternative synonyms for hair --mane, tresses, locks, frizz, mop--in each of her verses. Jennifer Pleces contributes witty illustrations of Ella, in all her hairbrush avoidance maneuvers, to make this little story a comical coiffure caper indeed.

For another tale of tangled tresses, see Laurie Halse Anderson's hilarious The Hair of Zoe Fleefenbacher Goes to School for another frizzy hair giggle fest, in which some of this hair today has to be gone tomorrow!