No Way, Wash Day

A child loves everything about her hair except wash day in Thurman’s picture book debut, a tender ode to the intergenerational bonds behind the ritual. Though Nina Belle enjoys the way her hair “bopped and bounced” and “zigged and zagged,” wash days represent little more than frustration. After several attempts to dodge the event, including hiding from Mama, Nina Belle laments, until Mama shares her own perspective: “Baby, wash day is love.” Juanita’s signature-style digital illustrations, which employ scanned analog textures, capture the comfortable warmth of the brown-skinned family’s home life as Mama explains that despite disliking her own childhood wash days (“I thought your Grams was tryin’ to drown me in our old claw-foot tub”), she wouldn’t trade them for anything. Final spreads of this gently intimate celebration of hair and heritage see the young protagonist enjoying the ritual as Mama says, “You know someday you’ll do this with your babies,” and Nina Belle asks, “Will you still do mine, Mama? Even then?” “Even always” Mama responds. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)