I’m so excited that you are here with us today. And I’m going to share a poignant heart tugging gives you all the feels picture book titled hair love, written by Matthew A. Cherry and illustrated by Vashti Harrison. The reason for picking this book is that the main character Zuri, Swahili, is beautiful, and she is getting ready for her day. And she has a lot on her mind, but it just talks about how she revels in her natural hair in her coils. And in the story, she loves having her hair and different styles.
For example, She loves her funky braids and beads and feels like a princess. She says her daddy tells her she’s beautiful, which makes her feel so good. It’s so reaffirming. And it shows how even her hairstyle is more sir into a different persona. For example, she feels like a superhero when her hair’s in two puffs to Afro pub. And some days, she hangs out to have magical moments on Sundays when she gets up for her daily routine. She’s going to figure out how I am going to do my hair. And she’s looking online for tutorials and things like that. But her Daddy needs to help. And the beautiful thing about this book is that she wants her hair to look good to make her feel good about herself. And this dad has no idea. Bless his heart. And he’s trying his hardest.
And he’s trying to see what kinds of ways I can help my daughter Zuri. And Zuri is just like, Whew, okay, let’s see how this will go down. Dad’s trying, you know, and it reminds me of the one time I could remember my core memory. When my Father, the late Emmett Metzger, tried to do my hair. And I remember he had all my hair slides and ties, pulling and pushing. And I ended up with one braid. Off the top of my head just stuck straight up to the sky. But he tried, and it reminds me of Zuri’s dad of him trying as hard to get his daughter’s hair done to enjoy and make her feel so good on the inside and outside.
And we even did his homework. And that’s what I think is neat because I didn’t want to give away too much when mom was away at a time. It was nice to see that Dad took the time to cultivate in making sure that Zuri’s hair was protected and still regal at the same time. And why I picked this book for your audience is so many of us in the BIPOC community with our natural hair, we need to have you all understand that it takes a lot of time. Our hair is very delicate. It’s easily breakable, and we use ways to protect our hair.
So it can grow and thrive in some things where people might be asking, wow, Jeb, you had braids in your hair one day. And now you have it in twists, or now you have it in puffs, or you have it out natural as a little mini Afro a TWA. And there are some things that we love to change it up. We love to change our hairstyles. But we also know that it takes a lot of care and patience with our hair. And I think educators can use this book to show all of our kids the different styles in the BIPOC community with our hair and our natural hair care. But it also shows the importance of how we value our hair.
There’s an old African American saying that says our hair is our crowning glory. And my touch on that is in a crown should be seen and not touched. So when you are an elementary school educator, and you are reading this book to your students, please reiterate to your students, especially your African American students in your classroom, that it does not permit anybody to touch their hair. Their hair is their crowning glory. I can’t tell you how many times I was a student, people would want to touch my hair and put sand in my hair. or felt like I was on display. And even as an adult, even as a teacher, some colleagues would come up to me and ask to touch my hair.
I felt very tokenized when I had colleagues coming up and wanting to touch my hair. So having books like hair love opens up that conversation of the respect of natural black hair and opens the door for all kids to see the different hairstyles and the pride that comes with it. So I highly recommend this book, Hair Love by Matthew Cherry, illustrated by Vashti Harrison. They also have an animated short that goes along with it. And what I love about this animated short, it doesn’t have much dialogue.
Still, you can see in their nonverbal cues and communication how the Father loves his daughter and his determination to get the hairstyles just right, just like the mom did. And so, I highly recommend reading the book first and then showing the animated short; you’ll love both of them. So highly recommend this book. Please share this blog post with people that love their natural hair, and share it with a friend who might be curious about natural hair and the different styles that go with it. Thank you so much.
