cover image Dalia’s Wondrous Hair/El cabello maravilloso de Dalia

Dalia’s Wondrous Hair/El cabello maravilloso de Dalia

Laura Lacámara, trans. into the Spanish by Gabriela Baeza Ventura. Arte Público/Piñata, $17.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-55885-789-6

A rich, warm palette and paintings bursting with vegetation—both drawn from Lacámara’s native Cuba—add to the anything-is-possible atmosphere of this charming bilingual story about a girl who decides to do something special with her towering beehive of hair. Dalia asks her mother to guess what kind of tree she is as she packs her bouffant with leaves from the forest and mud from the swamp. Although Dalia’s ’do gets a tad icky (“Do you want me to take care of that?” offers a machete-wielding neighbor), the whimsical result is worth it. Ages 4–9. (June)