Hair Twins by Raakhee Mirchandani & Holly Hatam (Review)

Title: Hair Twins
Author: Raakhee Mirchandani
Illustratior: Holly Hatam
Type: Fiction
Genre: Children’s, Contemporary
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette Book Group)
Date published: May 4, 2021

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

A Sikh father and daughter with a special hair bond proudly celebrate and share a family tradition in this charming story perfect for fans of Hair Love and I Love My Hair!

Every morning Papa combs through his daughter’s waves like he does his own—parting it down the middle, using coconut oil to get all the tangles out.

Some days he braids her hair in two twists down the side of her face. Other days he weaves it into one long braid hanging down her back, just like a unicorn tail.
But her favorite style is when he combs her hair in a tight bun on the top of her head, just like the joora he wears every day under his turban. They call this their hair twin look!

⤖ My Review ⬻

I will be transparent and upfront from the start of this review about the fact that, going into Hair Twins, I did not know a lot about Sikhs and their traditions, and that this book made me painfully aware of this fact. Hair Twins being a kids book leads me to assume that it contains some basic, “everyone knows this” or “everyone should know this” type of information–information that I should have already known…

But I didn’t know most of it. This realization then made me question why that was, and the conclusion that I came to was that firstly, I was not exposed to, and did not actively seek out, enough books or other sources of information about Siks and secondly that I need to rectify this as soon as possible.

You might be thinking that I’m going off on a tangent, or you may be wondering why I’m sharing this type of self-reflection in a review post about a picture book. I will clear things up–I’m hoping that it will help drive home my next point. I know that I have said this a few times when reviewing children’s books: books like this so, so are important. And the reason that I reiterate this is because I believe it to be true.

The sooner kids learn about cultures, religions, etc. other than their own, and also learn about how important it is that we embrace and support each other as fellow human beings, the better our world will become. Hair Twins was unbelievably sweet and also very informative–I highly recommend it as well as other kids books like it!