Crazy Hair

From the people who brought you Wolves in the Walls comes a celebration of one man’s extraordinary crowning glory. Ace stylist Dave McKean (by appointment now to both Messrs Gaiman and Almond) works his magic on Neil Gaiman’s glossy, flowing rhyme about the longest and most accommodating head of hair ever and there’s not a strand out of place or a split end in sight. Luxuriant isn’t the word for this barmy barnet. Among other strange residents in these glowing locks, there are lions and tigers, fairground rides, dancers and balloons, pirate sloops, and – beware! – a very hungry blue bear. I wouldn’t be the one to comb it out, but bold Bonnie insists (doesn’t she believe all this stuff?) and finds a whole new way of life awaiting her. McKean revels in the texture, shape, and subtle hues of hair, from strangely curling single strands, to looping cables and heaving waves. He teases, blows, frizzles and tangles it into a perch for cockatoos, a writhing accompaniment to the dance, wind-blown wheat lands, a rolling seaway and an impenetrable forest. Realising a rhyme like this seems to me a supreme challenge for an illustrator: but McKean does more than provide the pictures for the words, more than convince that this miracle might happen. Through attention to detail, pictorial inventiveness, dramatic composition, and absolute imaginative conviction, he conveys the wonder, scary delight and sheer awe of its possibility. Individual spreads are breathtaking; the whole book is astonishing: vibrant, funny, mysterious and inspiring.