Crazy Hair

Gaiman, Neil. 2009. Crazy Hair. Illustrated by Dave McKean. HarperCollins.

This is Bonnie.
This is me.
We were standing
silently.
She said,
"I don't mean to stare.
Mister, you've got
Crazy hair."

A love of all things Gaiman sure helps when reading Crazy Hair. That and a love of all-things-silly. In Crazy Hair we meet a semi-crazy pair: A little girl and a grown man with some crazy hair.

What's going on in this man's crazy hair? A little bit of everything I'd imagine:

In my hair
Gorillas leap,
Tigers stalk,
And ground sloths sleep.
Prides of lions
Make their lair
Somewhere
in my crazy hair.

See what I mean about silly? But silly works at times. I'm not saying it doesn't. I did like that it was imaginative. I can see a few extension activities working with this one. Page after page, Bonnie hears the warnings about his crazy hair. But what happens when she braves to approach that 'crazy' hair with a comb? Read and see for yourself in Neil Gaiman's Crazy Hair.

Personally, I don't care for the Dave McKean illustrations. He's just not my style. But you might appreciate them more than I did. I see this one as appealing to a wider audience than most picture books.

© Becky Laney of Young Readers