5 October 2013 BUGS IN MY HAIR! by David Shannon, Blue Sky Press, August 2013, 32p., ISBN: 978-0-545-14313-4 

"Oh, there ain't no bugs on me

There ain't no bugs on me

There may be bugs on the rest of you mugs

But there ain't no bugs on me"

(If you search YouTube, you can find the Jerry Garcia version of this tune which appeared on his 1993 album "Not for Kids Only")

"My head really itched!  What in the heck were they doing up there?

"LICE-A PALOOZA!

"Actually, they were feasting on my blood.

"Oh, the shame!  The humiliation!  Everyone will know.  I won't have any friends."

One of the benefits of my having been a preschool director, with preschool teachers working for me, was that I could ask THEM do the nit checks when the lice, once again, began rearing their heads on the kids' heads (which, of course, happens periodically in all schools).  And, yes, I'd also happily delegate responsibility to those teachers to make the thorny phone calls to parents to let them know that they needed to leave work, come pick up their children, and deal with the bugs in their hair.

While I was pretty fortunate in keeping my own then-long hair lice-free, there was no escaping that power of suggestion that has you feeling itchy every time you watch some four year-old scratching.  (Yes, I'm scratching right now, just thinking about it.)

David Shannon's big-time breakout book, NO, DAVID!, and books like THE RAIN CAME DOWN and HOW I BECAME A PIRATE have been really popular with kids and have won awards.  Mr. Shannon has established a very unique style.  I love that when I showed BUGS IN MY HAIR! to a friend last night, and she began to read it, she immediately paused to ask me whether this was the same guy who did the pirate book that her now-teenagers had such fun with a decade ago when they were little kids.

BUGS IN MY HAIR! is my favorite David Shannon book yet.  The cover and the aforementioned two-page LICE-A-PALOOZA spread, both of which feature enormous, comical lice characters, are unlike anything I've previously seen in children's picture books.  The victim here -- the narrator of this woeful tale -- is a curly red-headed kid. 

"Lice are really hard to get rid of.  It was like they took over our whole life."

This particular two-page spread is the best of the best.  The narrator is sitting on the couch, hemmed in by a pair of lice that dwarf him in size.  One louse is smoking a cigar and reading Parasite Magazine.  The other is eating popcorn, grasping a beverage, and has taken control of the channel changer.  Meanwhile, Mom is passing by, buried under a pile of laundry.  ("Mom did laundry every day to keep bugs from spreading.")

But moms are good at solving problems, and the narrator's mom is soon gearing up to seriously get rid of the not-so-little nasties. 

But you know they'll be back again all too soon...

This is an absolute must-have.

Richie Partington, MLIS
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