Neil Gaiman. His works tread that very fine line between genius, weird and downright creepy. I find most of his adult novels (American Gods) to have hints of genius, but a bit overwritten. His graphic novels (Sandman) are incredible. His children's books, however, they are something altogether different. It's hard to look at a children's picture book, find it incredibly creepy, but still love it. Together with illustrator Dave McKean, Gaiman has created a wonderful, albeit creepy, children's book called Crazy Hair.
The premise of Crazy Hair is simple. A girl named Bonnie encounters a man with, you guessed it, crazy hair. When she comments on it, the crazy coifed narrator goes into a long, rhythmic, poetic explanation of said hair and all the things that can be found there.
There are pools And water slides Carousels And pony rides All the fun Of any fair Waits inside my crazy hair.
Birds and butterflies, hunters and bears, dancers and more can be found in this man's crazy hair. When Bonnie tries to introduce a comb, he exclaims that they've all been tried before to no avail, right before Bonnie gets lost in the crazy hair.
The narrator tells of his crazy hair in a sing song, lyrical manner that lulls my four-month-old into a state of peace, makes my seven-year-old giggle and makes my ten-year-old stop what she's doing to listen. Dave McKean's illustrations are perfect for the subject matter. Anyone could draw pictures of animals and people, but to draw them in hair? Ewwww. Gross. In a very MirrorMask kind of way, McKean illustrates Crazy Hair with realistic strokes of Picassoesque creatures.
The illustrations are beautiful and colorful. When the hot air balloons are taking off, the hair looks like a field of grass. When the bear is shown hibernating, it looks like a deep, dark forest. And in what I suppose is the moral of the story, Bonnie changes from a 'normal' girl with straight, well-combed hair into a girl who's let her hair down, so to speak. By the end of the book, she can be found Hibernating with the bear Dancing with the dancers there Happy as a millionaire, Safe inside my crazy hair.
Creepy? Sure, if you think about it too much. Fun for everyone in my family? Very much so! I'd forgotten how much I love really good illustrated children's books. My older two are into chapter books and graphic novels. Now I have a young one around again, and the children's section of my library is my favorite place once again! Crazy Hair was a great reintroduction to great children's books.
Gaiman, the author of the Newbery Medal-winning The Graveyard Book, and illustrator McKean team up once again for this whimsical, witty rhyming tale o...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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