Abie Longstaff (text) & Lauren Beard (illustrations)(Random House Children’s Books)

Meet Kitty Lacey, hairdresser extraordinaire with an array of famous clients: from Little Red to Thumbelina, and from the Beast to Father Christmas, they all come to visit when their hair needs a trim. But when she is called to a rather threatening-looking tower, she is amazed at what she finds; hair, lots of hair, masses of hair and at the heart of it, a girl: Rapunzel. As she starts working on those golden locks, she inadvertently foils and the Witch’s evil plan and prevents it from going ahead. And at the same time does a little bit of matchmaking by allowing Rapunzel and her Prince to meet. All in a day’s work for lovely Kitty!



I love this book! Kitty is hairdresser to many traditional fairy-tale characters and this picture books carries on the tradition of books such The Jolly Postman and Each Peach Pear, Plum, young readers (and parents) will have great fun spotting all the fairytales regulars. In the Library Mice household we particularly loved the fact that our local witch, in Wookey Hole, gets a mention! The text flows really well and is full of fun, and is accompanied by funky, lively and brightly-coloured illustrations by Lauren Beard. I didn’t know this illustrator at all until now but I have to say I absolutely love her style! It is so fresh, slightly comic-like (some of the characters remind me of chibis in manga) and I love the palette of colours she used in this book. Again this one is shamelessly girly, with plenty of glitter on the front over and final page. But again, it is in no way tasteless. It is more in the same spirit as Gillian Rogerson and Sarah McIntyre’s You Can’t Eat a Princess – girly, but with attitude!

I really enjoyed this book and so did the Library Mice offspring. It is full of fun and a great take on Rapunzel. It is whole-heartedly recommended from the whole Library Mice family and with a royal wedding at the end, it might come handy when looking for suitable stories towards the end of April!

Sent for review by publisher

Related posts