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 inThe Man Who Lost His Headisn’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 picking up 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 only a brash bold boy can save the man who lost his head from losing it altogether.

Claire Huchet Bishop’s charming parable is illustrated by the great Robert McCloskey, whose books for children includeOne Morning in Maine,Blueberries for Sal, and the Caldecott Medal–winningMake Way for Ducklings.