Crazy Hair

Neil Gaiman (author)

Dave McKean (illustrator)

Bloomsbury Publishing, UK: 2009

Genres: humour, picture book

Issues: differences, tolerance

‘In my hair gorillas leap, tigers stalk, and ground sloths sleep. Prides of lions make their lair somewhere in my crazy hair.'

Bonnie is fascinated by Mister's ‘crazy hair' and is determined to tame it. But Mister likes his hair the way it is. Feeling that his hair is not so much crazy as misunderstood, Mister defends its right to be whatever it chooses to be.

Neil Gaimain (Coraline; The Graveyard Book) has collaborated again with Dave McKean (Wolves in the Walls) to produce another wonderfully bizarre picture book. Apart from being great fun, Crazy Hair explores the idea of being different - and society's attitude towards non-conformists. Gaiman and McKean challenge readers to change their perspective; to open their minds and step outside their need for sameness. Gaiman and McKean have a remarkable ability to seamlessly merge their talents and ideas so that it is impossible to tell which came first - the text or the images. The strong rhythm of Gaiman's text projects the life and energy of the creatures living in Mister's ‘crazy hair', drawing the reader - and Bonnie - further in, further in, always further in. McKean's mixed media illustrations surround, enfold, and almost absorb the lines of text, until the reader almost feels the ‘crazy hair' wrapping around their own fingers on the page.

Beware - you could be the next thing drawn into Mister's ‘crazy hair'!