THE UNEXPECTEDLY BAD HAIR OF BARCELONA SMITH

A hyper-cautious lad is dragged by his hair—literally—into a looser lifestyle in this typically off-the-wall episode from Graves. Too “properly prudent” to smell the roses, play on the playground or even to smile (“What if a flying insect were to crash into one’s teeth?”), Barcelona sports thick goggles, rubber gloves, a life jacket and thick locks of blue hair that are trained to stand straight up. Until, that is, one day when they explode into a wild mass that dances outside, stomps through a puddle, climbs a tree, pets a dog and performs other such imprudent stunts as Barcelona, willy-nilly, tags along. A rainstorm finally washes off whatever it was that touched off the spree, but the damage is done, and off goes the boy, upright again and grinning despite the danger of bugs. Though less gross than Graves’s best work, this is sufficiently wacky to sit next to, say, Margie Palatini’s Bedhead, illustrated by Jack E. Davis (2000). (Picture book. 6-8)