J. Dillard

My 7yo and I read this together. It's funny, charming, and we both liked it a lot. She is looking forward to reading more in the series.

We had to look up a bunch of the celebrities named in the book for the purpose of visualizing the kind of haircuts they have. Most of them are NBA and NFL players. Thanks be to Google image search. My haircut vocabulary is pretty limited.

This book also revealed that my Seattle-raised child is confused by the idea of calling your own family members sir and ma'am. It started a discussion about how there are different expectations around politeness/manners in different parts of the country (and the world). And yet this book also shows how it's ok for children to stand up to grown-ups. J.D. is right to be proud of his haircutting skills and he's not punished for showing up the local professional barber.

The book focuses on J.D.'s artistic gifts, but there's also a nice math/economics lesson baked into the story. How much will he earn if he charges $3 a pop and has 10 clients each Saturday? What is the point of earning a lot of money if he's working constantly and has no time to enjoy the fruits of his labor?… (meer)

When J.D.'s mom makes a right mess of his haircut, J.D. has to take some drastic measures, including cutting his own hair. But then it turns out he actually has skills with the clippers -- so much so that the local barber in town is threatened by J.D.'s friends demanding his cool cuts.

This is a short and sweet book about a child with a passion and talent for styling hair. With its smattering of pop culture references, it will appeal to young readers who also enjoy sports and video games. It's a quick read, with short chapters and a decent amount of black-and-white illustrations that add a little pizzazz to the story. Positive messages about working hard and being at a minimum polite (even after someone has been unkind to you) are emphasized throughout. There's also a couple of quick math problems for some educational moments that don't feel forced because it's J.D. working out his earnings.

The book also has a lot of diversity, with a mainly Black cast of characters. In addition, there's a nontraditional family living arrangement: J.D. and his siblings reside with their mother, who is a nontraditional college student, as well as their grandparents while their dad isn't really in the picture. And, one of J.D.'s close friends is a girl who plays sports so expertly that she's on boys' teams as well as girls' teams.

There were a couple of small errors in the text that should have been caught in the editing process but apparently weren't. In the opening chapter, it's mentioned that the family tradition is to not have a first haircut until age 9, but later J.D. indicates that he is only aged 8. Also, early on, it's mentioned that mutual friend Jessyka paints nails for J.D.'s sister from time to time, but in the final chapter, he states that their mother never allows his sister to have nail polish.

Though short, this book wraps up all its storylines with the exception of one element introduced in the last chapter that makes it clear J.D.'s story isn't over. With such an interesting cast of characters, many readers will certainly want to come back and visit them again. Nevertheless, it's not such a cliffhanger as to make this book feel incomplete at its conclusion.

In many ways, I think this title would be a good readalike to The Lemonade War series for those looking for a similar style, particularly one with more people of color among the characters.… (meer)