A youth section, a Saturday, and a question whispered to the bookseller: a book where the heroine has hair like my daughter's? Ten years ago, the answer was often no. That has changed.
Here are seven books, four for adults and three to read with a child, in which curly hair is not a background detail but a driving force of the story. All are available in French, and we provide the publisher and translation for each, because that is where selections copied from one site to another are most often wrong. And because a book cannot replace a gesture, our step-by-step tutorial details the six steps of the Rituel Texture®.
What we really look for in a book
Most selections of this type promise that a book will reconcile a child with their hair. That is a lot to ask of a paper object. What a good book does, more modestly, is provide a vocabulary: it names things we experience without articulating them, the salon where we spend Saturdays, the gesture of straightening before an interview, the comment from a classmate in the schoolyard. Once named, these things become open to discussion.
The second criterion is more demanding. A character who exists only through their relationship with their hair remains a problematic character. The titles that follow were selected because their heroines have other things to do with their lives.
In a book or a film, what I look for is a Black woman seen from different angles, who is in control and who manages her world. Maryse Condé's books inspired me greatly, with this 1960s Guadeloupe where women still wore their curly hair naturally.
Ghana Elin, founderFour reads for adults
The Heart to Laugh and Cry, by Maryse Condé
Subtitled True Tales from My Childhood and published by Robert Laffont in 1999, this book tells of a childhood in Guadeloupe in a family that wanted to be exemplary. Hair does not occupy a chapter: it runs through the story like the rest, through what is said and what is left unsaid about color, appearance, and respectability. It is the fairest gateway to the Antilles before widespread chemical straightening, and the book is easily found, including in paperback.
Black Skin, Curly Hair, by Juliette Sméralda
Subtitled the history of an alienation and published by Jasor in Guadeloupe in 2004, this is an essay, not a novel. In it, the sociologist traces the long history of the relationship with curly hair and what the colonial period deposited there, over three hundred and fifty pages and with its bibliography. This is the title to recommend to those who want references and reasoning rather than a story. She extended this work with From Straightened Hair to Curly Hair, published by Anibwé, which is now much harder to find new.
Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Published in 2013 and translated from English by Anne Damour at Gallimard in 2015, then reprinted in Folio, the novel follows Ifemelu, a Nigerian woman who went to study in the United States, where she runs a blog on the issue of race. The braiding salon, where she spends long hours, serves as an observation post: it is there that hierarchies, origins, and ambitions are discussed. The pages about straightening hair before a job interview are among the most quoted in the book, and for good reason.
But Their Eyes Were Fixed on God, by Zora Neale Hurston
Published in the United States in 1937, this classic follows Janie Crawford through three marriages and an emancipation. Her hair, which her second husband forces her to cover in public, is one of the concrete issues of her freedom: she lets it down at the moment she takes control. Two French translations coexist, and it is useful to know before ordering. The most recent is by Sika Fakambi, published by Zulma in 2018 and then in paperback; the oldest, by Françoise Brodsky, was published by Éditions de l'Aube in 1996 under the title A Black Woman.
Three books to read with a child
Like a Million Black Butterflies, by Laura Nsafou
Illustrated by Barbara Brun and published by Cambourakis in September 2018, this picture book follows Adé, mocked at school for hair that does not look like everyone else's. Her mother and aunts show her another way of looking at it: sleeping black butterflies. Thirty-two pages, a short text, and the only picture book written directly in French in this selection to talk about curly hair. The author and illustrator have signed two other picture books with the same publisher, Jada's Journey and The Home of Heaven.
Sulwe, by Lupita Nyong'o
Illustrated by Vashti Harrison, this picture book tells the story of a little girl whose skin is darker than her sister's. The subject is not hair but colorism; yet it touches the same place, that where a child decides that something in her needs correcting. The French edition was published by Michel Lafon in September 2022, in a translation by Laura Nsafou. Forty-eight pages, to be read with an adult, because the book calls for a conversation.
Frizzy, by Claribel A. Ortega
A graphic novel drawn by Rose Bousamra, published in French by Jungle in April 2023, in a translation by Mathilde Tamae-Bouhon. Marlene, a Dominican teenager, is taken to the salon every weekend to have her hair straightened, until the day she refuses. The two hundred and twelve pages describe without caricature the family pressure, which almost always comes from women convinced they are doing the right thing. This is the title to put in the hands of a preteen who is starting to ask questions.
Where to find them, and in what language
Six of these seven titles can be ordered today without difficulty from a bookseller. The seventh, Juliette Sméralda's second essay, is found mostly used or in libraries, and we prefer to mention it rather than remove it from the list: it is a text that counts. For the rest, the vigilance is less on availability than on the edition.
Before ordering
- Check the language of the edition: Frizzy and Sulwe are sold in both languages, under the same title.
- For Zora Neale Hurston, two translations coexist under two different titles.
- An independent bookstore can order any of these titles in a few days.
- Children's picture books are often available in libraries, which allows you to test before buying.
The book, and styling time
These reads have a very concrete use, and that is perhaps their best. The care of a child's hair takes a long time and goes badly when it is experienced as an endured constraint. A picture book read while detangling changes the nature of the moment: the child has something to do, the adult has something to say, and the session ceases to be a negotiation.
The rest is down to technique, and technique boils down to very little. Detangling begins with the fingers, on dry hair, section by section, before any pass under water. The comb only comes after, on lengths coated with the Repair Mask, from the ends toward the roots, with a return to the fingers as soon as resistance appears. This is what makes the difference between a session that hurts and a session that is nothing more than a moment together. See our article on painless detangling and our routine for children's curly hair.
Are styling sessions going badly at your place?
Our experts will go over the gesture with you, on your texture and your child's, and look for where the pain comes from. The consultation is done online.
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Sources
- Maryse Condé, The Heart to Laugh and Cry. True Tales from My Childhood, Robert Laffont, 1999.
- Juliette Sméralda, Black Skin, Curly Hair. The history of an alienation, Jasor, 2004 (notice from the catalog of the Bibliothèque publique d'information); From Straightened Hair to Curly Hair, Anibwé.
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah, translated from English by Anne Damour, Gallimard, 2015.
- Zora Neale Hurston, But Their Eyes Were Fixed on God, translated by Sika Fakambi, Zulma, 2018; first French translation under the title A Black Woman, by Françoise Brodsky, Éditions de l'Aube, 1996.
- Laura Nsafou and Barbara Brun, Like a Million Black Butterflies, Cambourakis, 2018.
- Lupita Nyong'o, Sulwe, illustrated by Vashti Harrison, translated by Laura Nsafou, Michel Lafon, 2022.
- Claribel A. Ortega and Rose Bousamra, Frizzy, translated by Mathilde Tamae-Bouhon, Jungle, 2023.
