The holidays can bring out the warm and fuzzies as familial traditions and classics are revisited as touch points to legacy. Published in 1998 and written by Chicagoan Natasha Anastasia Tarpley, “I Love My Hair!” can now be considered one such classic.
Back in the day, “I Love My Hair!” was a book that many viewed through a lens of self-esteem; others, a paean to a mother’s love; others, a celebration of Black identity. More than 20 years old, the book showed us Keyana’s world through a story of learning to love yourself as the young girl’s mother brushes her hair every night before bed.
“The inspiration for “I Love My Hair!” really wasn’t to write a book about hair,” Tarpley said. “When I was growing up, I did not like getting my hair combed. So my mom would play this game with me where we would just make up stories about people who lived in my hair — we would pretend there’s a whole neighborhood of people living in my hair. And we would make up stories about these characters as she worked her way through the tangles, which made it a very creative, fun time that really sparked my own creativity and that’s what I was hoping to do with “I Love My Hair!” to really touch and tap into that sense of curiosity and creativity and imagination. Hair becomes a vehicle for that.”
