Story time: The Fairytale Hairdresser (14/04/2012)
| Venue | ： | Olympian City Branch, Shop 115, 1/F, Olympian City 1, 11 Hoi Fai Road, West Kowloon, Kln. |
| Speaker | ： | Ms. Abie Longstaff |
| Host | ： | Ms. Christa Tam |
Review
It is rather rare to have a hairdresser as the protagonist of a children’s book. It is even more unusual to have so many familiar characters from favourite children’s stories incorporated into a new one, with each character having their hair meticulously coiffed by Kittie, the best hairdresser in all the land. Perhaps that’s why on 14 April we had so many boys and girls who love stories at our storytime featuring Abie Longstaff, the author of The Fairytale Hairdresser.
Beautifully illustrated by Lauren Beard, much-loved characters such as Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid, The Gingerbread Man caught the attention of our young audience right from the start. Everyone had great fun naming the characters that came from all over the place to have their hair done by Kittie! They marvelled at how she dealt with her fussy customers. They were also very surprised that even Santa Claus had his beard and sideburns trimmed at Kittie’s as well.
The hardest case came when the Witch summoned Kittie to deal with all the hair that was taking up space in her tower. True to form, Kittie worked on the hair the best she could and found Rapunzel spinning away when she got to the centre! It was a sheer delight to see how the stories twisted from the original and how Kittie ultimately foiled the wicked Witch’s plan and played cupid to the handsome prince and Rapunzel.
At the end of the story, the children were really happy to learn from Abie just how the book was made. Many came up to look very carefully at her manuscript and to brush the hair of Abie’s Rapunzel doll. It was quite obvious that apart from having lots of fun listening to this “hairlarious” story, many were going to read and treasure the signed copies they held very tightly in their hands to take home to keep forever.
We thank all the parents for bringing their children and Abie Longstaff for giving us so much pleasure in reading her stories.
