Daddy Does the 'Do! Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry

My name is Zuri, and I have hair that has a mind of its own.

Zuri's hair does its own thing. It plays tricks on her. It can be large and lush, and then when a little rain falls, it goes from inflated to flat! She likes it when it's in beaded braids--all princessy. She feels proud when Daddy says it's beautiful.

But some days she wants it to be spectacular.

Today is a day when she wants an extra special hairstyle. She gets her laptop to research the best style ever!

But her cat Rocky gives her arm a nudge and she drops her laptop!

CRASH!

Daddy wakes up from a nap and comes to see what is going on. He tries to help.

"Piece of cake!" he says.

Daddy tries, but his efforts don't exactly meet with praise!

"No Way!

REALLY??

NO, Daddy!

OUCH!"

Daddy offers her the option of a knit cap pulled down to her eyebrows. NOPE! But at last Daddy has an inspiration, and for Zuri, her hair is just right for this special day, just in time for Mommy, who's back from her trip!

"Where's my ZuZu?" Mommy calls.

She finds Zuri's hair perfect, but Daddy is modest and even gallant about his styling skills.

"Thanks to you! We learned from the best!"

After all, she is her parents' daughter, in Matthew A. Cherry's hair saga, Hair Love (Random House, 2019). Thanks to the soft and sweet illustrations by artist Vashti Harrison, Cherry's latest has humor (a broken hair elastic pops Dad in the eye) and pathos not unknown to parents who struggle with the hair their offspring inherited from THEM! A nice slice of family life no matter what sort of hair you wear! "A bighearted ode to individuality and father-daughter collaboration," says Publishers Weekly.

Sure Coiffures! Princess Hair by Sharee Miller

All princesses wear crowns.

But...not all princesses have the same hair.

Hair care can be a can of worms for everyone, but some princesses have a trouble fitting their tiaras on top of their tresses.

Do princesses with dreadlocks rock? Do princesses with curls twirl in pearls?

Princesses with braids throw parades.

Princesses with buns love to run.

Is a Mohawk or a Frohawk suitable for a monarch?

Is the head that wears the crown well-coiffed?

Not all princesses have hair like Rapunzel, and Sheree Miller's Princess Hair (Little, Brown and Company, 2017) takes a lighthearted look at  hair care in her catalog of coiffures, all with the message that princess hair comes in all kinds, that all types of crowning glories can be worn with crowns in place. Her illustrations of would-be crowned heads run the gamut of hair glam, and her happy and nappy princesses are royally and properly coiffured for whatever tiara sits on top. As Kirkus Review says of Miller's illustrations, "Spread by double-page spread, the book highlights a multitude of diverse hairstyles while young girls play dress-up, all the while wearing their princess crowns.

Bad Hair Day: Eva and Sadie and the Worst Haircut Ever by by Jeff Cohen

WHEN I FINISHED, I LOOKED DOWN AT THE PILE OF HAIR ON THE FLOOR...
AND THAT'S WHEN THINGS WENT TERRIBLY WRONG.

"SADIE, ARE YOU SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING?" ASKED EVA.

Standing in the bathroom with Mom's sewing scissors, with a pile of her little sister's blond curls around her feet, Sadie realizes that it might not have been a great idea to give Eva's wild hair a little trim.

It was wild. Eva's hair is lush and has grown down to her tush. It's whirly and twirly, hurly-burly, and way too curly. Her waves work their way out of Mom's tightest braids. Her curly mop escapes from hair thingies, bounces out of barrettes, overwhelms headbands, and brushing only makes it frizzier. Something clearly needed to happen. And Big Sis Sadie, in her sensible brown bob, thinks she knows just what Eva's coiffure calls for.

But now Sadie realizes that Eva's mane is more that she can manage.

SOME PARTS ARE SHORT, AND SOME PARTS ARE LONG.

"THIS IS BAD, BAD BAD!"

BUT EVA LIKES IT.

Sadie knows that she's crossed the haircut Rubicon at this point, in Jeff Cohen's new Eva and Sadie and the Worst Haircut EVER! (HarperCollins, 2014). The impromtu haircut (by sister, best friend, or selfie) is almost a rite of passage of childhood, and Jeff Cohen's comic account of Sadie's growing panic as she feverishly snips and snips to try to even out Eva's haircut, along with Elanna Evans' sympathetic illustrations of the big sister and her complicit little sister, makes for an easy-going finish to this all too common story. Pair this one with the boy-pleasing [ { THIS MONSTER NEEDS A HAIRCUT } ] by Barton, Bethany (AUTHOR) Jul-05-2012 [ Hardcover ] by Bethany Barton.

Head Mice: The Girl Who Wouldn't Brush Her Hair by Kate Bernheimer

THERE ONCE WAS A GIRL WHO WOULDN'T BRUSH HER HAIR. HER HAIR WAS WONDERFUL--BEAR-BROWN AND WAVY.

Following her nightly bath, the girl refuses to brush out her hair, despite her mother's pleas that it is turning into a veritable rats' nest.

"IT'S JUST MY WAY," THE GIRL SAYS.

And as her mother dreads, a mouse takes up residence there in a particularly rat-nesty tangle. And soon his relatives begin to move in, happily making their way through tunnels and burrows in her hair. But the mice are polite, fond of bedtime fairy tales, pleasant to the girl's fortunately hairless doll, Baby, and amuse her with their supply of knock-knock jokes.

At school the kids marvel at the menagerie in her hair, but when her mother refuses to pack lunches for her head mice, the girl gets very hungry sharing her lunch with the rodent horde. And then a committee of her resident mice petition for her to stop taking showers, insisting that they fear drowning. The girl complies, but soon she is dirty, smelly, and still very hungry. Finally her teacher decides that certain steps must be taken:

THE TEACHER SAID, "I AM SORRY, BUT YOU CAN NO LONGER BRING BABY. EACH CHILD MAY HAVE ONLY ONE FRIEND, AND IT APPEARS YOU HAVE 100 MICE IN YOUR HAIR."

Now this is serious. In a choice between Baby and her head-resident mice, it's an easy decision--the mice must be evicted, in Kate Bernheimer's hair-raising fantasy, The Girl Who Wouldn't Brush Her Hair (Schwartz & Wade, 2013). For all kids who have ever run screaming from the hairbrush, this runaway hair tale is sure to strike a familiar note. Artist Jake Parker's hirsute heroine is a doll-like beauty whose luxuriant locks provide for intricate illustrations of mice at leisure in their ample tangles, while his cute Disney-esque mice offset the yuck factor of the girl's unwashed mane. The illustrator even gets the last laugh as the girl emerges from the inevitable shampoo with clean, shining braids while the mice are seen busily setting up residence in another classmate's coiffure.

This is a fine and funny fable of hair hygiene which will pair well with Laurie Halse Anderson's The Hair of Zoe Fleefenbacher Goes to School, (see my review here) Lee Fox's Ella Kazoo Will Not Brush Her Hair, or even Bethany Barton's This Monster Needs a Haircut. (see review here).

The Hair Makes the Man: Super Hairo and the Barber of Doom

EVERY SUPERHERO GETS HIS POWERS FROM SOMEWHERE.

MY POWER COMES FROM MY HAIR.

THE MORE MY HAIR GROWS, THE MORE AWESOME MY POWERS BECOME.

Superman may have had his kryptonite, but this young hero's superpowers come from his head.  Not from his brain, exactly, but from his hair--a truly impressive, bushy, reddish superfro that make all his feats of daring possible.  Along with his mega-hirsute followers, all sprouting massive mops, Rocco and his superfriends  accomplish feats of  strength and derring-do that impress all the kids in the neighborhood, especially that one interesting girl who quietly watches each awesome skateboard  jump or BMX bike leap.

But every superhero has his nemesis: Superman has The Joker, and young Rocco has ... The Barber of Doom.  

Faster than a speeding bullet, his traitorous parents nab Rocco, and off he goes to the villain's lair, where the Barber of Doom has his way with his hopelessly snarled mane. When Superhero emerges from his shearing a hapless hero, shorn of the source of his strength, he just knows that his super powers are history. Super Hairo is now Wimpy Baldo.

But that girl has a way to restore his powers.  An artful emergency is staged,  her Teddy bear is stranded far above the ground, and our sheared hero and his band of superdudes take the bait and answer the call to action.

POWER SURGED THROUGH US, AND WE SPRANG INTO ACTION!

It's hair today and gone tomorrow for this pint-sized superhero and his minions, who find out that their powers are all in their heads--but not in their hair, in this spoof of the Samson complex, John Rocco's Super Hair-o and the Barber of Doom (Hyperion, 2013). Masterful page design gives this superhero tale its pizzazzy prowess. Using comic-book dot-printing technique and a palette right out of DC Comics, Rocco uses dialogue balloons and plenty of  POWS and ZAPS to show the superdudes in action, switching to gray and white pages when the heroes lose their powers at the barbershop, and returning to color when the clean-cut heroes discover that even minus their manes, their mojo is still working. For a dynamic duo, a mane event, pair this story with Bethany Barton's This Monster Needs a Haircut (see review here)

A 2012 Caldecott winner for his Blackout, Rocco is a versatile author-illustrator who goes way back to Aesop for his fractured fable, Wolf! Wolf! (see review here), and ventures into fantasy in Moonpowder, very different stories but all with exemplary artwork.

Unendearing Shearing: Fancy Nancy: Hair Dos and Hair Don'ts by Jane O'Connor

"Do not forget," Ms. Glass reminds us.

"Tomorrow is Picture Day.

I also have a surprise."

Fancy Nancy Clancy, of course, needs no reminder of that day. The date on her calendar has been circled in stars for months. Her outfit (fancy for clothes) has been ready for ages--ruffled shirt, ruffled skirt, and even ruffled socks. There's only one item of fashion left to consider--the all-important hairstyle for the big day.

Nancy knows that her hair is one of her best assets:

"My hair is curly, so I can wear it in many flattering ways.

(Flattering is fancy for pretty.)

Nancy runs through her options--pigtails, a bun with fetching tendrils, long and loose. How to choose?

When in doubt, any girl knows to consult with her BFF. Bree reports that her mom has just done her hair in braids with special colored beads, and Nancy is inspired.

"Oh, how elegant," I tell her.

(Elegant is fancy for fancy.)

Nancy decides that beaded braids are the way to go, but mom is busy, and although Dad gives it a valiant try, his results are less than elegant!

Then Nancy has an inspiration all her own. She's been reading a biography of Amelia Earhart, and that adventurous aviatrix's windblown bob seems tres chic! All Nancy needs to do is make a few strategic snips on her hair, and "Ooh la la!" Right?

Uh, no! Nancy is about to learn a valuable life lesson.

"Trimming hair is very complicated! (Complicated is the opposite of easy.)

I can't go to school tomorrow. I look horrible!"

Mom tries to comfort Nancy (that's fancy for making me feel better) with a few strategic snips, but she nixes the idea of skipping school for a bad hair day, so Nancy shows up at school the next day, her fancy outfit on but her head covered with an unbecoming scarf. The long-awaited event looks like it's going to be memorable all right--a disaster of a Picture Day. The usually self-confident Nancy is up against a serious blow to her ego. For once she doesn't look fancy at all. She just plain looks weird.

Jane O'Connor moves fearlessly into the major crises of primary graders--bullying, as in Fancy Nancy and the Mean Girl (I Can Read Book 1) and major embarrassment (barfing on the field trip bus) in Fancy Nancy at the Museum (I Can Read Book 1),-- and in her recent Fancy Nancy: Hair Dos and Hair Don'ts (I Can Read Book 1) (Harper, 2011) O'Connor has the admirable Ms. Glass come through again with her promised surprise--matching caps reading "Ms. Glass's Stars" for everyone to wear in the photo--giving Nancy's self-image (and chopped locks) some cover and a chance to regrow some hair before the next public photo op. Inexpensive, engaging for the beginning reader to tackle, slipping in vocabulary lessons (with an appended glossary of Nancy's Fancy Words introduced in the text)--these little books are pretty fancy themselves.

Pair this one with that other hilarious fictional treatise on that rite de passage of early childhood--the self-inflicted haircut, Junie B. Jones Is a Beauty Shop Guy (Junie B. Jones, No. 11), for further insight into the perils of self-snipping.

Hairdo Snafu! Fancy Nancy: Ooh La La! It's Beauty Day by Jane O'Connor

I bought special styling mousse. On the can it guarantees "shiny curls with plenty of bounce."

I apply the mousse. (You say "moose," not "mousse"--it's French for foam.) I use a lot more than the can says because my client's hair is very straight. Also because it's so much fun to push the button--poof!

It's hard being the only fancy person in a plain family, but Fancy Nancy Clancy never misses an opportunity to pitch the stylish life.

When Dad invites Mom out for a birthday dinner and a movie date, Nancy seizes the occasion to fancy up her ultra plain-Jane mom. She turns her outdoor clubhouse into the posh Ooh La La Beauty Spa and ushers her mom into a comfy seat for a makeover. Her client loves the hand massage, the banana-and-honey facial complete with elegante turban designed by Nancy, the sea salt foot soak, the recorder music to relax her while she rests with cucumber slices on her eyes, and the fruit parfaits Nancy dishes up as refreshment.

But when it comes to the makeover, her client is a hard sell. Despite Nancy's rainbow of nail polish choices, Mom declines forever fuscia, lotus blossom, and cherry pie polish:

Guess which one my mom picks?

My mom doesn't want any of them. She wants clear nail polish.

Sheesh! But her motto is that the client's wish is her command, so, undeterred, Nancy moves on to cosmetics. Her mom accedes to a modest application of eye shadow, pink lip gloss, and blush on her cheeks. "My mom is so pretty," Nancy thinks.

And now for Nancy's specialty--le coiffure! Nancy is determined that her mom's straight ponytail will be replaced by natural-looking curly tresses like hers. She slathers on the mousse, and using her friend Bree's technique, turns her mom's hair into dozens of small braids. Then she encourages her mom to relax while it dries while she, Nancy, entertains with card tricks and a hula hoop performance.

Then it's time for THE REVEAL!

OH NO!

My mom's hair is horrible, hideous, horrendous! It's nothing like the picture on the can!

Mom's coiffure would make Medusa envious! It's time for the talented amateur to call in a pro. Nancy phones Mrs. DeVine, a former genuine hair professional. Mrs. DeVine's diagnosis calls for a hardcore remedy--hairspray!

"Voila!" says Mrs. DeVine.

"It's magnifique!" I say.

Ever the good sport, Mom dons her trusty little black dress, and with a carbon copy of Mrs. DeVine's cast-iron 1960s "Flip" hairdo, waves gamely as she departs for her big night out, even wearing a sequined pipe-cleaner headband spelling out "MOM," designed and handcrafted by--Nancy.

It's a quintessential Fancy Nancy outing in Jane O'Connor's and Robin Preiss Glasser's just-published Fancy Nancy: Ooh La La! It's Beauty Day (HarperCollins, 2010). With directions for concocting a banana facial, a sea salt and lemon foot bath, a yummy blueberry yogurt parfait, and a light-hearted cautionary tale about the perils of coiffure construction, all buoyed by Glasser's exuberant illustrations, this Fancy Nancy entry is sure to delight her multitudes of fashionista fans.