While clearly attempting to provide lighthearted encouragement for children who might feel inadequate, the choice of a wig-rather than a drag queen or queer child-as the entry point for empathy and self-reflection leaves much to be desired. feels after being temporarily abandoned by Wig are important questions left noticeably unaddressed. Why Wig feels more confident on heads other than B.B’s.

Readers will smile at the satisfying ending. Recalling that she has left B.B.’s head bare, “Wig frizzes and fizzles and splits her ends, flying home FAST to find her friend” as the contest begins. By instilling confidence in others, Wig regains her own. With each head she lands on, Wig’s hairstyle changes, and the person is magically transformed into a fearless, glamorous drag queen. and flies through the air, zooming among the heads of audience members. Everywhere she looks, there are wigs that are even taller and showier than she is. On the way to the event, Wig attracts attention and feels larger-than-life on B.B.’s head but upon arriving at the ball, suffers a crisis of confidence. Bedazzle, who is participating in a drag contest called the Big Wig Ball. Wig, a bright pink hair covering styled in a Brigitte Bardot–inspired bouffant, is the prized possession of a young boy named B.B.

He lives near Minneapolis, MN with his two cats.A wig feels insignificant until it recalls its purpose. His debut picture book “Big Wig” is out now, and his second picture book “The Wishing Machine” is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in Fall 2023. His work has been featured in Fat and Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives. Jonathan Hillman is a graduate of Hamline University’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults (MFAC) program, where he won the Walden Pond Press Award for Excellence in Middle Grade Fiction. You can also find her poetry and short works at POETRY, Yellow Medicine Review, The Under Review, Rock & Sling and OUR SHADOWS HAVE CLAWS anthology with Algonquin and forthcoming RELIT with HarperCollins. She now teaches at Hamline’s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and serves as the coordinator for Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop’s mentorship program. Ari grew up in Minneapolis and took classes in the Loft’s program as a teenager and young adult and received her MFAC from Hamline. Her debut YA hybrid prose and poetry novel “SAINTS OF THE HOUSEHOLD” was released March 28th, 2023 and has already received three starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and BCCB and was selected as a JLG Gold Standard Selection. For Children’s Book Week, Ari and Jon will read and talk a little bit about writing for young people & what books do!Īri Tison is a Bribri (Indigenous Costa Rican) poet and author.

Jonathan hillman big wig