The Man Who Lost His Head

Of course the illustrations by the wonderful McCloskey make the book. But the surreal story is a hoot, too. I might not have appreciated when I was a literal-minded kid, but my inner child giggled several times, and sighed when the story was over.

Thank you, OpenLibrary, for archiving these old treasures.

I thought this book was ok. I didn't really enjoy the story very much, but I picked it because it is such an old book. The story is about a man who loses his head. He spends all day looking for his head at the fail. He tries to replace his head with different things until he can find his real head. Then he runs into a boy who has the man describe what his head looks like, and then the boy asked the man to close his eyes to find that he wakes up in bed and finds his head attached. The author used very detailed and descriptive words like "boyish voice, overjoyed, disdainful" which was helpful in the fact that it really helped the reader to figure out what exactly is going on. Although most of them require context clues to really show more understand which is why I rated it for a higher age group. I enjoyed how the author kept changing the main character because it makes the reader have to pay attention and it also has an element of predictability. I also like how the author created the little boy to help the man find his head. I think the little boy was very charismatic and interested in the mans concerns and I really think that is a valuable lesson to younger children. The illustrations, are all in black and white which I didn't like. I'm not sure if this is because the book is so old, or if it was the intention of the author. Only the cover and back page have color. I think if the author would have used color to show the description of the words, the book might have been more interesting. I think the big picture of thi story is that you shouldn't worry about something too much because there is always someone to help you. show less

To quote Z, "that was a really funny book."
A headstrong boy who enjoys big words saves the day.
Charming prose with vintage illustrations by Robert McCloskey.