Crazy Hair

Adore the illustrations. and I love anything with a sloth!

Okay so I am a huge Gaiman fan. I know Gaiman has released a couple books for children, but I don't have any of them. When I saw "Crazy Hair" was coming out I actually pre-ordered it. All my expectations were met; it is a great kid's book and I also enjoy it as an adult.

I read through it first by

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myself to make sure it wasn't too scary. Personally the fact that the main character has all of this crazy stuff living in his hair creeped me out a little. Then the girl gets sucked into his hair; which I thought might be scary to my 2 1/2 year old son. Still once the girl is in his hair she has a really good time. The pictures (in true Dave McKean style) are very abstract and a little creepy. There is one picture in particular with a pirate ship swooping through huge hair folicles that is a bit odd. So all-in-all the normal mix of wildly creative, creepy, strange that I have come to expect from the Gaiman/McKean team. The book itself is a good length for a toddler; long enough to be a good story but short enough to keep their attention.

So, how did my son like it?

He absolutely loves this book. We read it over and over. He loves that every stanza ends with "crazy hair!" and screams that closing statement at the top of his lungs. He thinks it is really neat that all of this stuff lives in this guy's hair. When the girl gets sucked into the guy's hair he thinks it is hilarious and he has memorized all of the neat things she does "dancing in his crazy hair!"

He also finds the abstract artwork fascinating and will spend (well not hours) but minutes at a time (that's a lot for a toddler) just staring at them and pointing out the things he sees.

In summary I was very pleased with this book and so was my 2 1/2 year old son. We read it every night. It is a great story with wonderful artwork. It made me anxious to get some of Gaiman and McKean's other children's books. This is a book that I will keep forever; it definitely gets a spot on my keeper shelf. I would strongly recommend this book for all ages.

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A fun picture book from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean.

This is a great quirky book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. It is beautifully illustrated and the story holds the wonderful strangeness that Gaiman is well known for. The story itself would hold the interest of most YA readers, however the dark abstract illustrations might turn off a younger

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reader.

The story itself is about a man with strange and bushy hair and the little girl who wants to try to tame it. Inside of his hair lives animals, musicians, dancers and wonderous places , and when the girl tries to tame his hair with a comb, she ends up getting lost in it in the process. It is a cute story that holds your interest.

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Dave McKean is a favorite author and illustrator of graphic novels, and Neil Gaiman is pretty popular in the graphic novel world himself, so I was excited to see this book at the library. The idea of the book is interesting, but I cared more about the illustrations - and McKean did not disappoint.

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His work is always so fantastical, colorful, movement-oriented and exciting. The graphic novels he's created that I've read have been for adults and, though his style in this book is much the same, I can tell that it is more youthful and exciting for children. It was a really fun book to read.

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Picture Neil Gaiman's take on bad hair, and you've got a wild, funny, rhyming book, Crazy Hair!

The artwork is sufficiently spooky to go with Neil Gaiman, and the dialouge is thoroughly dramatic,

""Child! Are you mad!" I cried.
"Combs and brushes
Have been tried.
One was eaten
By a bear
Prowling through

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my crazy hair.""

This would be fun for school visits.

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An entire world of wonders is hidden inside a man's crazy hair. This book explores the limits of a person's imagination. After reading, children can discuss in what ways they let their imaginations to run wild.

From award winning author Neil Gaiman, and illustrator Dave McKean.

A little girl named Bonnie meets Neil Gaiman and tries to comb his crazy hair, but instead of taming his locks she is pulled inside his “Crazy Hair”. Inside Neil Gaiman’s hair Bonnie goes on a weird and wondrous journey, and

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has many bizarre encounters.

Crazy Hair uses flowing rhymes and intense visuals to draw children into the bizarre and enticing world of Neil Gaiman’s hair. A great book for a group read aloud.

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This fantastical picture book plays with the idea of having long hair that gets so tangled it's like a birds nest. The crazy hair is so tangled and messy that not only do birds live in it, but bears, dancers and pirates too! Even those who try to comb out the tangles get entrapped in the mess with

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no escape. A fun book for those who can relate to the tangled hair but the pictures and lack of a "happy ending" (tangles are freed) may be too much for a younger crowd.

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While not Gaiman's best effort, it's still a bizarre absurdity of a poem well matched with Dave McKean's bizarrely absurd art. The art and text work very well together (and I could look at McKean's art all day), though it doesn't gel as a book as well as Wolves in the Walls.

Another cute-for-children poem by Gaiman. What makes this little book are the whimsical, saturated images by Dave McKean who must leave little trails of brilliance and paint wherever he goes.

As expected, this book is "out there!" I liked the bizarreness and creativity of what was in the crazy hair.

What a delightful journey of creativity with the theme of out of control hair. I was enthralled by this book. I liked everything about it -- the images, the story line and the way in which it all blended together to create an exquisite publication.

Mesmerized by a man who has wild, extremely out of

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control hair, young Bonnie is curious and discovers a host of characters living in the mangled mane. There are pirates, gorillas, a rain forest complete with animals, and birds and bears all live in the crazy hair.

Offering to comb the hair, eventually young Bonnie is swallowed inside with the host of mangy characters.

While very young children might find some of the images scary, still, I wouldn't hesitate to read it to the young ones in my life.

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Crazy Hair is one of the book that I found in Big Bad Wolf Sale which I try to get for my nephew since when he's getting older, he won't get pink fairy tale book hand-me-downs and instead a creepy Neil Gaiman book.

Well, it is a given since these guys made Mirrormask.



I don't know about you, it does

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nothing with Mirrormask's creep noir level.

But it is intended to be a children's book. Very thin but rich with texture and colors that made it an interesting book for even adults to read... that or Neil Gaiman fans.

Its about a guy with creepy hair that have weird things in it and that its floating from the sky. Very original and very whimsical innocent fairy-tales format like and very gender neutral. I don't think anyone would have issue in owning this book. It is hard for anyone to elicit proper emotions from lines and colours and in this McKean does wonders to the eyes. Gaiman on the other hand, contributed with interesting words along the pages as the character try to explain to his *probably* daughter about his hair and how his hair have weird things inside them.

If you have weird sense of humor, for a short picture book, the story is really hilarious in wacky way.

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Crazy Hair is one of the book that I found in Big Bad Wolf Sale which I try to get for my nephew since when he's getting older, he won't get pink fairy tale book hand-me-downs and instead a creepy Neil Gaiman book.

Well, it is a given since these guys made Mirrormask.



I don't know about you, it does

Show More

nothing with Mirrormask's creep noir level.

But it is intended to be a children's book. Very thin but rich with texture and colors that made it an interesting book for even adults to read... that or Neil Gaiman fans.

Its about a guy with creepy hair that have weird things in it and that its floating from the sky. Very original and very whimsical innocent fairy-tales format like and very gender neutral. I don't think anyone would have issue in owning this book. It is hard for anyone to elicit proper emotions from lines and colours and in this McKean does wonders to the eyes. Gaiman on the other hand, contributed with interesting words along the pages as the character try to explain to his *probably* daughter about his hair and how his hair have weird things inside them.

If you have weird sense of humor, for a short picture book, the story is really hilarious in wacky way.

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This is a modern fantasy and I was not a huge fan of this book for several reasons. The way the text is written makes the book difficult to read and follow along with. Each word at the beginning of a sentence is capitalized, even if it isn’t a new sentence. This was confusing for me and I am sure

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it would be for a new reader or someone who struggles to read. The different fonts made the text harder to read as well. Some font was big, some small, some bold, some italic and different fonts. This would have been a neat feature to the book, but the way the text was organized did not make it play out that way. The words were scattered all over the pages, in different directions and had no organization. Some words had lines going through them or you had to guess where you were supposed to read next. What I did like about this book is that the pictures were very detailed and colorful. It drew your attention to the book and made it seem like you were going on an adventure as you turned each page. The pages included pirate ships, a bear, a lion, hot air balloons, colorful dresses, a carousel and other things that might be found only in your imagination or your adventurous dreams. The entire story rhymed in a sophisticated way that added to the story and made it more exciting to read like saying, “Twisting, tangling trails and loops, treasure chests and pirate sloops”. Finally, I liked that you had to really think about the message the story was trying to portray to you. The big idea wasn’t as obvious as it is in most children’s books, which is good for students to possible reread the story and think in depth. However, the big idea was that the character originally thought this man had “crazy” hair because it was something she had never seen before. As the man with the “crazy hair” began telling his story and everything exciting the “crazy” hair has done for him, the girl becomes interested and joins in on those adventures. It teaches students that just because something is different, don’t mean we should call it crazy. Once you understand something you might learn that it is actually something exciting and something you might even enjoy.

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A man's hair acts as a strange alternate world. The girl who tries to tame it ends up becoming an enthusiastic denizen in the world of hair. The book is extremely interesting to look at, and might appeal to children who enjoy more modern, grown up art.

“Crazy Hair” by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Dave McKean is a wonderfully strange story within a poem that is unique and fun to read. I love this book for two reasons. First of all, the plot is so different from anything I have ever read before. The main character’s hair is so long and

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filled with things like pirates and bears, dancers and carousels, and the little girl is just wondering why he does not comb his hair. This to me is such a novel idea, and I enjoyed imaging these things trapped in this man’s hair. However, I did not have to imagine top hard! The illustrator did a fantastic job at depicting all of these wild scenes. I liked how he used thousands of lines to represent the individual hairs rather than blending them all. I also liked how the people in the poem had sharp angles on their faces, eyes that were colored all the way in, and many shadows surrounding them; this made them appear very mysterious and not of this world. I believe the message came at the end, when the little girl tried to comb the man’s hair and was grabbed by a creature inside, and then forever lived in his hair. I think the message was to embrace differences and things that might even seem scary or crazy, because you might come to understand and even enjoy someone’s point of view. This was demonstrated by the fact that the girl ended up enjoying hunting animals, sailing with the pirates, and dancing with the people in the crazy hair.

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Read on August 20, 2014

As one who(whom?) on (many) occasions has crazy hair, I can appreciate what's happening in this book. While I hope there aren't gorillas or pirates living in my hair, there are definitely days where it eats combs. I'm not crazy about the illustrations, but the rhymes are fun.

'Crazy Hair' is a beautifully written and illustrated fantasy book for young children. It is an offbeat, amusing ode to the author's own crazy hair and will especially appeal to children with great imagination.

Very amusing tale of my crazy hair. It reminded me of my niece's hair when she was so young and her hair was long and quite unmanageable. I wish my imagination had reached Gaiman's dimensions discussing how crazy his hair is.

Truly outrageous, with just a twist of the supernatural, as you'd expect from Gaiman.

Inventive, outrageous, imaginative - in short, crazy! This rhyming picture-book follows the story of a man with crazy hair and the young girl who is determined to 'fix' his unruly locks. As the man explains just how out of control his hair is, playing host to any number of creatures, Bonnie

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counters with a comb. Unfortunately for her (or fortunately, as the case may be), the residents of the man's hair don't take well to being disturbed...

Only the second picture-book I have read from the prolific Neil Gaiman (the first being Instructions), Crazy Hair was an absolute hoot! The rhyming text reads well - "Child! Are you mad!" / I cried / "Combs and brushes / Have been tried. / Once was eaten / By a bear / Prowling through my crazy hair" - and would make an excellent story-time selection, while the surreal artwork by Dave McKean, who has worked with Gaiman on such titles as Coraline and The Graveyard Book, captures the madcap sense of fun of the text. Recommended to all Gaiman fans, and to anyone looking for picture-books featuring a silly and wondrously imaginative sense of fun.

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I *so* love this book... of course, I'm a die-hard Gaiman *and* D. McKean fan(atic). My son also loves it - we just got it from the library, and it's been in heavy rotation.