Little Toby and the Big Hair

Elizabeth Levin is a professor of psychology at Laurentian University.

Toby has incredible hair; it’s curly and twisty and bouncy and BIG.
Like many little girls, Toby wants to have the longest hair in the
world. But her hair causes problems as it becomes tangled with
everything from candies and goats to turtles and baby’s fingers. When
Toby’s hair causes a big mess one day, her mom gets quite upset. After
Toby wails that nobody understands, her bald grandfather surprises her
by saying that he does: he shows her a picture of himself with long and
curly hair. Toby learns that she can love someone “any way at all”
and that it doesn’t matter what you look like. Toby decides to braid
her hair for a family picnic, and she and her mom decide that her hair
can be beautiful in many ways.

The story is nicely complemented by bold, bright Fimo illustrations
that let the imagination soar; particularly effective are the pictures
of Mom helping Toby remove turtles, frogs, and crawdads from her hair,
and of an animal menagerie helping Toby carry her very heavy hair.

Fun to read, this story may come in handy when parent and child are at
odds over something. Highly recommended.