When Your Llama Needs a Haircut

by Susanna Leonard Hill, Daniel Wiseman (Illustrator)

Overview

When it’s picture day and you realize your llama needs a haircut, you’ll need a good comb and some luck! This charming and hilarious board book features one shaggy llama and a whole lot of hairstyles!

Uh-oh. It’s picture day and someone's a mess! Does your llama need a haircut?

After a hilarious shampoo, it’s time to decide which style would be best for your shaggy llama. A mohawk? Layers? Or how about a brand-new fur color? But be careful…or you just might end up with a haircut, too!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781534405646
Publisher:	Little Simon
Publication date:	01/02/2018
Series:	When Your...
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	26
Sales rank:	735,747
File size:	10 MB
Age Range:	2 - 4 Years

About the Author

Susanna Leonard Hill is the award-winning author of nearly a dozen books for children, including Punxsutawney Phyllis (A Booklist Children’s Pick and Amelia Bloomer Project choice); No Sword Fighting in the House (a Junior Library Guild selection); Can’t Sleep Without Sheep (a Children’s Book of the Month); and Not Yet, Rose (a Gold Mom’s Choice Award winner). She lives in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley with her husband, children, and two rescue dogs. She loves chocolate, animals, and being outdoors.

Daniel Wiseman likes to draw. A lot. He likes it so much, he’s made a career out of it. Usually he draws animals wearing clothes, or kids enjoying a good dance party. However, when prodded, he’s been known to draw pretty much anything else. Daniel currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his beautiful wife and his equally beautiful son. When he isn’t drawing, he can usually be found doing one of these great things: perfecting his biscuit recipe, hiking up a mountain in some faraway location, singing loudly in his car, riding his bike on the mean streets of STL, or napping.

Editorial Reviews

2017-12-03
It's picture day, and everyone wants to look their best—including a very hairy llama.To prepare for picture day, an unnamed black boy must fix his pet llama's unruly hair. It turns out that making a llama photoworthy is no easy endeavor: after catching his llama and convincing him to get a haircut, the little boy must wash and detangle his pet's hair. Next, the pair must choose a hairstyle. After vacillating among choices ranging from a bowl cut to a mohawk, they settle on a "simple trim from nose to tail." When the llama still won't cooperate, the boy decides to take a different approach, leading to a twist ending. It is refreshing to see a black protagonist in a comedic story, and the combination of second-person narration and cartoonish illustrations proves witty and engaging. Adults will appreciate Hill's (When Your Lion Needs a Bath, 2017) numerous winks to parents, who may recognize parallels between cutting a llama's hair and caring for a toddler. However, the narrative is too advanced for the typical board-book-age reader. The conflict involves picture day, an occasion that will be unfamiliar to children who do not yet attend school. The ending falls flat, partly because it involves an abstract leap too complex for very young readers.Overall, a mismatch of story and format. (Board book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews

11/13/2017
In this frisky companion to When Your Lion Needs a Bath and When Your Elephant Has the Sniffles, it’s school picture day and a llama’s unkempt mane needs help. The animal’s young owner chases down his pet, hoses it, and untangles its hair with a rake. In a sequence bound to earn giggles, the boy considers potential llama hairstyles, which Wiseman depicts in wry cartoons (“How about a Mohawk? That does look good! But who has an hour a day for styling?”). The llama’s expressions, which range from blank stares to total bewilderment, are worth their weight in llama wool. Ages 2–4. Author’s agent: Liza Voges, Eden Street Literary. Illustrator’s agent: Teresa Kietlinski, Bookmark Literary. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly