Three Books About... Beautiful Ethnic Hair
The books in this category struck me for all different reasons. One focuses on an array of diverse cultures, two on African American culture; one focuses on girls, one on boys, and one on both; but all celebrate the beauty of multicultural hair and cultures. So, on to the books!
Book One: "Princess Hair" by Sharee Miller
Summary: In this book, great for toddlers to first grade, a vast variety of beautiful ethnic hairstyles is celebrated, with each page featuring a different style - from puffs, twist outs, dreadlocks, frohawks, head wraps, bantu knots, afros, blowouts, braids, and more! In a room arrayed with hair ornaments and girls smiling in pride, the book begins: "All princesses wear crowns, but underneath their crowns, not all princesses have the same hair." From there, adorable alliterative lines and rhymes follow, like "Some princesses wear puffs and play pretend, others wear twist outs and twirl around," or "Princesses with kinks love to think, and princesses with frohawks rock!" Many girls are portrayed on each page, with variations of each style on all - for example, the braids range from a large braided bun to thin braids bedecked with tiny beads to long, almost reddish braids, to short thick braids, to braids that form a crown from one side of the head to the other.
Personal response: I adored this book so much! As a teacher, tutor, and nanny in the past, I have had so many times when girls would come up to me and say, sadly, "I wish I had princess hair like Ariel/Rapunzel/Elsa/Cinderella (yep, Cinderella is still there)." Despite the recent trend in depicting more diverse hair on characters like Merida (woohoo for wild curls!) and Moana (yay for beautiful beach curls!), many little girls still wish for the long, straight, glossy locks one might find in an old Pantene commercial - and, unfortunately, on almost all of our Disney princesses. Despite always telling them "Your hair is beautiful, and it's even more beautiful because it's on you! It's your hair, and that makes it my favorite hair for you! (usually adding a comment about how their mom braided it so beautifully or how their hair looks like an awesome role model's hair), they still seem a little crestfallen. But this book turns the stale idea of "princess hair" on its head! (pun intended) :)
Now girls can see representations of their own hair in this book, as girls do everyday fun activities, shining in their beautiful hair and dresses!
My only criticisms might be that the princesses here do, unfortunately, all wear dresses, rather than other equally awesome clothes that many girls might prefer (though lots of girls have a "just dresses" phase, I certainly did) and also that by pairing one activity with one type of hair (dreadlocks with drawing, literal-minded toddlers may think "Wait, I don't do that, but I have that hair!" - but this can be cleared up with a simple talk between the child and the caregiver.
Evaluative critique: While the whole concept of this book is beautiful, the variety of hairstyles, types, and textures is well-thought-out, and the phrases are fun and accessible to little ones being read to or reading, what really makes this book stand out are its phenomenal illustrations, done by the author of the book herself! On every page, people of different ethnicities and skin tones and hair styles (but still within one group of hair styles, like dreadlocks) are pictured as creative, happy, enthusiastic, a thinker, and proud, clearly confident in themselves, their looks, and their abilities. Highlighting the "Doing" as well as the "Looking" is important in any book targeted to girls, especially when addressing the often "pretty"-centric issue of princesses - and this picture book does this excellently. So much expression, vibrancy, and fun and funny details (such as one baking princess who stacks used cupcake batter bowls in her crown) make this book sure to be one that kids will ask for again.
Book Two: "Crown:" An Ode to the Fresh Cut" by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James
Summary: In this poem-book, a good choice for third grade to sixth grade, a boy walks in to his local barbershop for a fresh haircut - and into a rapturous, affirming, confidence-rocketing experience. Entering as a "blank canvas, a slab of marble," the boy is ready to be draped like royalty, cooled with shaving cream, and become a walking work of art with smooth lines and cool designs "framing (his) swagger" and making him feel like the other men in the shop, looking so important, fresh, presidential, majestic, fly - like "CEOs of cool." His confidence sky-high, the boy thinks of how, with a cut like this, he might ace his next test, wow the principal, amaze his school and his crush, and stun the rest of the people in the shop. He feels like "how your mother looks at you before she calls you beautiful... being viewed in your mother's eyes as someone that matters - now that's beautiful."
Personal Response: I was fascinated after reading a note from author Derrick Barnes on his site that "sitting in that barber's chair and receiving a dope haircut was probably the only place in the Black community that boys were treated like royalty." So often we forget that, like girls with their princess dreams, boys want to be admired, for both how they look and what they do, and they want to feel special - a cut above the ordinary, if you can tolerate another pun. So often in schools, boys, sometimes especially Black and brown boys, are reprimanded for being too loud, too active, too talkative, too grabbing of teachers' and others' attentions (I have made this mistake myself) - but we forget how they, like anyone, need and crave positive attention, approval, admiration, affirmation that they matter and they are here - and we are so glad of it!
Evaluative critique: This book, despite being only a year old, has already won the 2018 Caldecott Honor Award, the 2018 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award and New Illustrator Honor, the 2018 Newberry Medal, the Coretta Scott King Honor Book for both Author and Illustrator, and the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal - and it's easy to see why! Many of these awards celebrate cultural affirmation, and this book does it in such a beautiful, proud, moving way! Everyone in the shop, a centerpiece of many Black communities, is proud of their looks, and the tone shows that it is absolutely right to be so - and the barbers are valued as the true artists they are, not just changing up styles, but creating new perspectives on life, crafting confidence with the cut of their razor. This book, refreshingly, also uses Black English (African American Vernacular English or AAVE) - a language/dialect in its own right that goes far beyond "just slang," using phrases like "When my man is done with you, they'll want to post you up in a museum! That's my word" or "That hooks up your intellectual." The book also is peppered with specific terms like "fly," "fresh," "shape-up," "locs" - each one describing something that is said best in that way - there is no better word for it. In its contextual beauty, the book dives into the heart of the Black community and comes up with a shining portrait of its confidence, commitment, and creativity.
Meanwhile, the illustrations, done by Gordon C. James, are done in resplendent oil paintings, picturing each person as a portrait limned in light, glowing from within with personality, depth, and again - confidence. Each angle is chosen so carefully, whether peering just over a man's ear as he admires himself in the mirror, to a low-angle of the boy in the chair, feeling so important as his hair is sculpted by the artist, to a symbolic bright portrait full of warm colors of the boy and his mother, the boy blowing a trumpet as the mother leans in with affection towards her pride and joy.
Book Three: "Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship by Irene Latham and Charles Waters
Summary: While the "Can I touch your hair?" issue is the subject of only one of this amazing collection of poems that also form a story of friendship, misunderstandings and stereotypes leading to understanding and recognition of both difference and similarity on both sides, I thought this book, great for grades 4-6, belonged in this post because of its brilliant navigation of racial issues and how children can help create change through communication. The book begins when two children, a white girl and a Black boy, are assigned to do a poetry project together. At first, they pick "safe" topics they know they have in common - family, church, etc - but as they write, and learn to understand each other's differences, challenges, interests, and nuances, they go into more depth, exploring their different racial experiences and how the white girl can go beyond just avoiding those racially different out of fear they'd have nothing in common, ignoring color, or getting caught up in white guilt, while the black boy can reach out to others whom he'd thought would reject him or not be interesting to him, forgive those who have misstepped or misspoken but finally understand and sincerely apologize to him, and set boundaries in what he will allow and what he is comfortable with, discovering himself int he process. In the process, the two form a friendship,
Personal Response: First, the "hair issue" - the question "Can I touch your hair?" is a microaggression which many Black and brown people face daily, is the annoyance of having another person, many times even a stranger, look on them and their hair with (at best) fascination or (at worst) disdain) and ask "Can I touch your hair?" It might seem a benign question to a white person asking it - Black hair is beautiful, and of course includes many different textures, but the problem of the question being asked again and again, unsolicited (and sometimes even unasked, as someone just reaches out and touches their hair without asking), can brew resentment and frustration, as this Black writer explains far better than I could. But this book goes way beyond simply the hair issue (which it does do well, portraying the boy, Charles's, annoyance and anger when someone simply seizes his hair and comments on how "spongy" it is without asking), to address many occurrences of navigating racial rough waters. For example, in one poem, Charles is approached by a white boy who had earlier taunted him, saying "Why do you always try to act like one of us?" because Charles gets good grades and speaks Standard English at school instead of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE - see earlier hyperlink). The white boy offers a handshake and apologizes for his words, to which Charles is shocked, but returns the handshake and forgives the boy graciously with a "Thanks man, that means a lot" - but asks, curious, what made him apologize? The white boy replies - "Last week a couple of African Americans asked me the same question I asked you." Both boys have been misperceived according to stereotypes to which neither conforms. While Charles, the black boy, experienced being stereotyped every day, the white boy had not, until some African-Americans pointed it out to him - that he was trying to act stereotypically "black." This comment paved the way for the white boy's understanding - and it's admirable that Charles reacted so kindly, as many would not (and should not have to) forgive bullying such as the white boy had done earlier in the book.
Evaluative Critique:
Through both the text and the beautiful, symbol-rich illustrations, the authors and artists of this work successfully navigate the difficult questions of race and cross-cultural communication, and do it in a way that is accessible - but still holds nothing back - for children. Emotions run the gamut in this book, from frustration, understanding, excitement, anxiety, fulfillment, disappointment, curiosity, hurt, joy, confusion, and above all, thoughtfulness. One picture especially reflects the tone of this book, as Charles clasps hands with a white classmate (the one who apologized), their faces shown in three-quarter profile, with the clasped handshake sprouting a plant made of collaged leaves,w ith different textures and scraps of text on each leaf, and a small flowering bloom at the top - a metaphor for the real growth that only come from mistakes, new knowledge, and intercultural communication.
