MINJI’S SALON

A little Korean girl decides to experiment as a hair stylist when she watches her mother enter the hair salon. As Mom selects a new hair style and color, Minji swathes her pet dog in a towel and pretends the dog is a customer in Minji’s imaginary salon. First Minji tries out different styles on the apprehensive canine. Mimicking a hair colorist, she carefully mixes ice cream from the freezer, which she liberally applies to the dog’s head and ears. Next Minji adds more color with paints and uses crayons and pencils like rollers for the dog’s fur. While seated under a make-shift hair dryer, the dog chomps on a book. After Minji’s finishing touches, the pampered pooch emerges with fluffy multicolored ears just in time for Mom to return with her own freshly coiffed hair and discover the chaos of the homemade salon. Choung’s original illustrations and minimalist text cleverly pair scenes of Mom’s progress in the adult salon with parallel developments in Minji’s for some amusing comparisons. Creative and fresh. (Picture book. 3-6)