I Love My Hair!

I enjoy reading this book with my daughter. She is more confident about her hair. My daughter can relate to the main character, and that's nice. A great read.

This is such a cute book that promotes a positive self-esteem in girls. I started reading it to my daughter while I was pregnant with her. It's one of our favorite books to read together.

Natasha Anastasia Tarpley's "I Love My Hair!" is a children's book that combines an easy-to-read text with colorful illustrations by E.B. Lewis. The text represents the first-person reflections of a little Black girl named Keyana. After describing the hair care ritual she goes through with her mother, Keyana reflects on the different styles in which she can wear her hair: cornrows, an Afro, a bun, etc.The appealing illustrations blend fantasy and reality as Keyana thinks about each hairstyle. For example, her two ponytails become wings that allow her to fly. The text is also fun. Sample line: "I love my hair because it is thick as a forest, soft as cotton candy. . ." This is an especially empowering book for Black girls, but the imaginative elements in the book also make it good for a broader audience.

Roethler, Jacque. "Reading in Color: Children's Book Illustrations and Identity Formation for Black Children in the United States." African America Review 32.1 (1998): 95-104. Tarpley, Natasha Anastasia. I Love My Hair. Illus. E. B. Lewis. Canada: Little, Brown and Company 1998. In I Love My Hair, the author reflects on a little girl's experience of her mother fixing her hair. Although Keyana's experience of getting her hair fixed is not always pleasant, the outcome is always pleasing. While Keyana's mother fixes her hair, she tells Keyana how beautiful her hair is and that she is lucky to have the kind of hair that she does. Once when Keyana's mother fixes her hair in an afro, the kids at school teased her, but then her teacher told her that she should be proud of her hair and that the afro style is a statement of pride in her African heritage. Through her mother's and her teacher's encouragement, Keyana learns to appreciate and love her hair as well as herself. I like this book for various reasons. First the main character is Afro-American. During my childhood, I was not exposed to books in which the main characters and illustrations reflected African American culture and values. The beginning of I Love My Hair depicts a situation that is so familiar among African American communities: Keyana sits between her mother's legs, squeezing her eyes together as her mother combs her hair. I became nostalgic while I read that page. I believe that literature containing African Americans as central characters is vital for African American children. This view is also shared by Jacque Roethler who, in her article "Reading in Color: Children's Book Illustrations and Identity Formation for Black Children in the United States" declares that children are sensitive to illustrations. She says that one of the ways in which Afro-American children develop their schemata is through illustrations in literature. This statement alone conveys how important it is to have Afro-American characters in literature. Roethler goes even further to say that the absence of Afro-Americans from literature and illustrations is detrimental because it makes Afro-Americans invisible in society. It is important to have Afro-Americans as main characters in literature, but it is more essential that their presence be positive. Many people perceive African American physical features as ugly or in need of correcting. In I Love My Hair, Tarpley takes one of these features and refutes its long-lived misconception. In this book, Tarpley tells of the natural beauty of Afro-Americans' kinky hair texture, thus countering the myth that most Afro-American females in today's society were brought up to believe: that if you don't have "good hair" (not kinky and fuzzy), then you must straighten or relax your hair to make it beautiful. Tarpley describes the beauty of Afro-American hair when Keyana's mother tells her that because she has this kind of hair, she can fix it in any style she w