The Man Who Lost His Head

It's bad news when you wake up in the morning and find you've lost your head, especially if it's an especially agreeable and handsome head, but there you go, such things happen. In any case, the man who loses his head in The Man Who Lost His Head isn't about to grin (that is, if he could grin) and bear it; no, he'll make himself a new one, and starting with a pumpkin and moving on to a parsnip and finally getting hold of a block of wood, he sets about getting it just right. Still, for all his efforts, it somehow isn't right. It isn't the head he had before. It turns out that that only a brash bold boy can save the man who lost his head from losing it altogether.

Claire Huchet Bishop's charming parable is accompanied by illustrations by the great Robert McCloskey, the creator of Make Way for Ducklings, One Morning in Maine, and other classic picture books.