WALLY DOES NOT WANT A HAIRCUT

Wally’s got one wild and wooly problem.

Even though his out-of-control fleece trips him up, gathers leaves and twigs, and keeps him from hugging his mama, young Wally does not think he needs a haircut. When the shears go “Swicka! Swicka!” and the clippers go “Bzzt! Bzzt!” Wally wigs out and hides between two large bales of hay. Mama shows him that haircuts don’t hurt by getting one herself. The sheepdog, the horses, the bull, and the goats all get new hairdos too, but Wally’s still afraid. “Cows got curls, donkeys donned updos, and the yak sported spikes. Even the pigs wore wigs.” Wally is still not interested in a shear. Then the animals decide to have a haircut hoedown, and Mama asks Wally to dance; he wants to come out of hiding…but he’s stuck thanks to his wool. He finally asks Mama to cut his hair and discovers that he loves the freedom of short wool. Driscoll’s alliterative sheep tale is a satisfying-enough story of fears faced. Children scared of barbers or the shears will identify. The Photoshop-painted pencil-sketch illustrations are acceptable cartoon farm fare: smoky, smudgy, smiling animals with wacky mops. Still, among the annals of haircut resistance, amiable though this book is, it’s not a radical departure from the rest.

Cute—but it doesn’t stand out from the flock.