Language Arts, Vocabulary: Introduce the word confidence and discuss its meaning.you stand at attention and forget about who you were when you walked through that door.' to the last page, 'Because you'll leave out of 'the shop' every single time, feeling the exact same way. Barnes and James (author and illustrator) do a wonderful job of elevating a simple experience into something that is inspiring for black boys, boys of all colors, and all of us to put our best foot forward and reach for the stars.Īt its core this is a story of the magic of transformation and the power of something like a haircut to change how we feel about ourselves. He uses the same power of imagination to picture himself doing really well in school and making the honor roll. That's how important he looks, ' and, 'He looks like he owns a few acres of land on Saturn. There are thousands of black angels waiting to guide and protect him. He describes the other patrons in their newly cut hair with great admiration and fanciful imaginings about what kind of people they are, '. He clearly loves getting his haircut and associates it with feeling proud and empowered. The boy narrates, describing how he feels going in and how he knows he'll feel coming out.

Each page is filled to overflowing with the beautiful heads of black American men (and one woman) with a wide range of hairstyles. You can feel and hear and smell the shop. As a black boy goes to get a hair cut, the text and illustrations work wonderfully together to immerse us in the barbershop experience. Here is a vivid, rich and textured celebration of self-worth.

Crown an ode to the fresh cut book