“In this hilar­i­ous sto­ry set in 19th-cen­tu­ry Paris, Madame La Grande tries hard to be styl­ish, but, nev­er­the­less, has the ‘fash­ion sense of a mule.’ She reads about pom­padours, the newest craze, and vis­its Marcel’s House of Hair Design for a ‘spec­tac­u­lar, mag­nif­i­cent’ hair­do. Mar­cel curls and shapes, pow­ders and pads Madame’s hair in a very fun­ny ver­ti­cal dou­ble-page spread. But, as she jour­neys to the opera that night, the tow­er­ing tri­umph of design (bedecked with bows, beads, and bunch­es of grapes) attracts two pigeons, three cats, and four poo­dles. The ensu­ing com­mo­tion stops the opera, the pom­padour entraps the king, and all explode in a ‘breath­tak­ing dis­play’ of springs, wires, and pil­lows. In the end, Madame La Grande turns her atten­tion to hoop skirts. This tale has a non­stop action and a vig­or­ous text with a rich vocab­u­lary, fre­quent allit­er­a­tion, and occa­sion­al French expres­sions. The car­toon­like illus­tra­tions are a per­fect match for the slap­stick humor. The bright full-col­or draw­ings are packed with peri­od details: archi­tec­ture, car­riages, cos­tumes, and, of course, hair styles. Near­ly all of the pic­tures are dou­ble-page spreads and their com­po­si­tion cre­ates visu­al dra­ma. With a lighter line and broad­er humor, this book is sim­i­lar to Deb­o­rah Nourse Lat­ti­more’s The Lady with the Ship on Her Head (Har­court, 1990) and will amuse young read­ers, tres chic or not.” (School Library Jour­nal)