{"id":2430,"date":"2015-06-22T10:22:11","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T10:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/the-girl-with-the-parrot-on-her-head\/"},"modified":"2015-06-22T10:22:11","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T10:22:11","slug":"the-girl-with-the-parrot-on-her-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/the-girl-with-the-parrot-on-her-head\/","title":{"rendered":"The Girl With the Parrot on Her Head"},"content":{"rendered":"

mostlysignssomeportents<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n

Daisy Hirst\u2019s picture book about friendship, loneliness and
\nself-reliance is shot through with delightful absurdity and illustrated
\nwith enormous wit.<\/p>\n

\nThe girl with the parrot on her head has a good life, thanks to her good
\n friend Simon, a fantastic playmate who is also good with newts. But
\nwhen Simon\u2019s family moves away, the girl is shattered, and has to learn
\nto play on her own. She develops a system for putting her playthings
\naway, including a box of wolves, a box of broken umbrellas, and a box of
\n darkness.\n<\/p>\n

But the biggest wolf doesn\u2019t quite fit in the wolf box, and she\u2019s
\nworried he\u2019ll get out, which is why she is so excited to find a huge box
\n on the kerb. When she tries to take it home, she discovers that it has a
\n kid inside it \u2013 another friend who helps her turn the box into a
\nspaceship and to turn the broken umbrellas into satellites that they use
\n to decorate her room to play new, epic make-believe games.\n<\/p>\n

\nI bought this over the weekend at the East London Comic Arts Fair and
\nread it to two seven-year-olds, my daughter and my nephew. I could tell
\nstraightaway that this was a winner. Both kids \u2013 who are starting to
\nage out of picture books and into chapter books \u2013 were totally taken
\nwith it, thanks in no small part to the enormous energy, movement and
\nnarrative drive from the deceptively simple artwork.\n<\/p>\n

The storyline is a gorgeous combination of straightahead allegory (girl
\nloses friend, learns to cope, finds new friend) and purest pinkwaterian
\nnonsense \u2013 why does she have a parrot on her head? What\u2019s the deal with
\n the wolves? It\u2019s such a winning combo!\n<\/p>\n

\nWe\u2019re about to move from London to Los Angeles, and while our daughter
\nis enormously excited about the prospect, she\u2019s also very trepidations
\nabout leaving her friends behind. I could really see her using this book
\n to help her with her fear.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere isn\u2019t much by way of US distribution (here\u2019s a couple used copies<\/a>), but I\u2019m willing to bet you can get \u2018em from online UK booksellers.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Girl with the Parrot on Her Head<\/a> [Daisy Hirst\/Walker Books]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

mostlysignssomeportents: Daisy Hirst\u2019s picture book about friendship, loneliness and self-reliance is shot through with delightful absurdity and illustrated with enormous wit. The girl with the parrot on her head has a good life, thanks to her good friend Simon, a fantastic playmate who is also good with newts. But when Simon\u2019s family moves away, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mugshotmonday.com\/site2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}