Hair Love

I gave my husband a haircut last weekend.  Since then he's been wearing a hat to the grocery store. My son has beautiful curly locks.  He could use a trim but won't let me near him with the clippers.  I don't think I'd let myself near him.  The thickest hair my hairdresser has ever cut is my daughter's. We thought it couldn't get any thicker. We were wrong.  And my hair? Well, it's just getting long with "highlights."

I was looking for a read aloud from my bookshelf and came across local author celeb, Matthew McElligott's Even Monsters Need Haircuts.  Perfect!

Every full moon, the barber's young son gets out of bed to work the "midnight shift" at his dad's barber shop.  In his slippers and PJs, he treats the monsters to something we are all craving right now.

Thanks to the Indiana Library Federation (and me), here are a few questions to think about that pair with the book (and today):

1. Which monster hair would you cut? Or not cut?
2. How long does hair grow in one month?
3. Research the superstitions behind a full moon.
4. My own addition--find a picture of you close to or at the beginning of quarantine.  Compare your hair to the way it is now.  Draw or describe how you think it will look right before you end up in the barber or hairdresser chair.

I went to check out Matt's website and it's filled with activities for kids and what?! A brand new book that just came out, Do Not Eat this Game!  Matt's website is a dream for parents and teachers--games, videos, lesson plans, STEM related projects and more.

When Matt visited CES oh so many years ago, I was not a seasoned author host.  But I still decorated the Dewey Section with tablecloths to match the colors in Bean Thirteen (maybe one of my favorites of his-so much so that the cover is framed and hanging in my foyer). He came back at night and did a program with parents using his special illustrating tools and we still have his creation hanging in the library.  It was a great author visit. I have a self made rule of always having new authors and illustrators visit.  Hmmm...Rules are meant to be broken, right?

I found three of Matt's books here at home, all signed to Zack but sadly not dated.  These days I always ask for a date stamp.  I probably didn't think about that back then.

And just speaking of hair.  I'm sure most people have already seen Hair Love, but I do love the Academy Award winning animated short and the book it was based on.

Here's a read aloud and the video.  Which do you like better?

Back in February, after we read the book we made our own hair love project. Check out these first graders:

Happy Hair Love! xo