CLIP CLIP CLIP: Three Stories About Hair

Like a chatty coiffeur, Krull (Supermarket) and Brewer's (Oh No, It's Robert) enthusiastic book expounds on outrageous dye jobs, celebrity hairstyles, cueball-headed space aliens and a prehistoric cut given to a caveboy. In its three sections (not counting a jam-packed list of "Some Hair Dos and Don'ts"), young characters muse on the obsession with perfect locks. In "Kevin's Hair Scare," a grimacing boy endures a salon session with a flamboyant stylist whose black curls defy gravity. "The mirrors were making him nervous.... There were too many pairs of scissors lying around," and he fears that his blond bangs won't grow back. "Ramon's Screamingly Bad Hair Day" presents a game of one-upmanship among friends, who swap horror stories about getting gum in their hair, finding hair in their cereal and seeing a dandruffy scalp. The best-realized piece, "Helen's Book of Dos," presents casual observations on hair issues. With its engaging inventory of "wispy," "wacky," "hippie" and "poodley" heads, all doodled on lined paper in colored pencil, this segment unifies the volume's various strands. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)