APE WITH A CAPE

A stylish ape sets up a hair salon on the main street in Jungle Town.

Ape wears a pinstripe suit, shiny boots, and “hair not seen in the jungle before, / an upward swept pompadour!” He opens a salon called Ape with a Cape, guaranteeing “a snappy new look,” and word spreads fast through the trees. He tames a lion’s mane into a “businessman.” He gives Miss Brown Bear a beehive. From a fox’s buzz cut to a sheep’s flattop, a penguin’s “bold afro” to a skunk’s “punk mohawk,” Ape can do it all—except a perm. For that, Poodle must go across the street, to Polar’s Rollers. The rhyming text has a rhythm that is easy to get into, and some readers will enjoy learning the names of different hairstyles and imagining animals experimenting with them. The final spread, showing an elephant, a turtle, birds, and more animals with assorted curls, is visually humorous, though the text ends rather anticlimactically. Readers may have mixed feelings about culturally specific hairstyles being used for laughs, and the lion’s transformation from wild mane to a straight-haired coif may disappoint and dismay those who have been made to feel that the natural state of their hair is somehow unprofessional or inappropriate.

Giggleworthy for some—but not universal.