Six Haunted Hairdos (Hamlet Chronicles) [Hardcover]

Gregory Maguire (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: Hamlet Chronicles

A sequel to Seven Spiders Spinning, with fake ghosts of hairdressers and real ghosts of mastodons.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5. The key elements of this zany story include a teacher who loves country music, Grandma's Baked Goods and Auto Repair Shop, woolly mammoth ghosts, a baby Indian elephant, a recent immigrant from India, and a Vermont setting. Miss Earth's fourth-grade students are divided along gender lines as to whether ghosts really exist. In an effort to prove themselves superior, the girls, members of the Tattletales club, set out to scare the boys, the Copycats club, by creating a story of six beauticians who died while touring the area. Luring the Copycats to the scene of the accident, the Tattletales scare them by using old clothes, wigs, and talcum powder. Meanwhile, the Copycats discover a herd of woolly mammoth ghosts that is searching for a lost baby. In a creative plot twist, the boys, aided by Pearl Hotchkiss who refuses to join either club, help the mammoths and get revenge on the girls. With a true understanding of fourth graders, the author creates believable characters. The dialogue is hilarious and reads aloud well. While the plot is complex because of all the characters, situations, and details, it flows nicely. The book features the same cast as Maguire's Seven Spiders Spinning (Houghton, 1994) but stands independently. Although the jacket art is less appealing, this title is bound to be as popular as Louis Sachar's Sideways Stories from Wayside School (Random, 1990).?Molly S. Kinney, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Having survived an influx of giant, poisonous Siberian snow spiders (Seven Spiders Spinning, 1994), the rival boys and girls of Miss Earth's class in Hamlet, Vermont, face another set of prehistoric critters: a herd of ghost mammoths hunting through the centuries for a misplaced youngling. In the wake of a classroom argument about the existence of ghosts, the Tattletales (girls) gleefully don fright masks and beehive wigs (`` `There is nothing quite so terrifying as hairstyles that have gone out of fashion' '') and send the Copycats (boys) fleeing down spooky Hardscrabble Hill in panic, where there are actual ghosts--indistinct mounds that appear at the first sign of peanuts and wander about with a mournful air. With the help of the new boy, Salim Bannerjee, a newly deceased pet mouse named Jeremiah Bullfrog, plus lots of chocolate donuts from the local bakery-cum-auto repair shop, the Copycats divine the source of the mammoths' unhappiness; they ease it with a handy baby elephant ghost that has followed Salim all the way from the Bombay Zoo. Then, using many cans of hair spray, they give the obliging pachyderms new hairstyles to turn the tables on the Tattletales. Maguire's wit sometimes slips its leash, but the climax is sidesplitting and the gender rivalry thoroughly skewered, although the heartwarming ectoplasmic adoption scene prompts a Thanksgiving Day truce between the factions. (b&w illustrations, not seen) (Fiction. 10-12) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Clarion Books (October 20, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395786266
• ISBN-13: 978-0395786260
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gregory Maguire received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University, and his B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany. He was a professor and co-director at the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature from 1979-1985. In 1987 he co-founded Children's Literature New England. He still serves as co-director of CLNE, although that organization has announced its intention to close after its 2006 institute.
The bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost, Mirror Mirror, and the Wicked Years, a series that includes Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. Wicked, now a beloved classic, is the basis for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name. Maguire has lectured on art, literature, and culture both at home and abroad.
He has three adopted children and is married to painter Andy Newman. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Six Haunted Hairdos: A hair raising tale, October 3, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Six Haunted Hairdos (The Hamlet Chronicles) (Paperback)

The book I reviewed is called Six Haunted Hairdos. This book was written by Gregory Maguire. Six Haunted Hairdos is a fictional book, and it is sort of a mystery, but at the same time it is an adventure.
A group of girls and a group of boys are always trying to outdo each other. When the girls cook up a wonderful plan to scare the boys, things start getting out of hand. Thelka Mustard, the empress of the girls club, who call themselves the Tattletales, tells the boys that six beauticians were recently killed on a nature trip. Though none of this is true, the boys are not sure whether they should believe this story or not.
Meanwhile, the boys who call their club (...), are having ghost troubles of their own, without Thelka Mustard trying to scare them with her crazy ghost story. Sammy Grubb, who is the emperor (...), thinks that they all saw a baby elephant, though this was no ordinary elephant, it was ghost.
The Tattletales are planning to scare the boys in their "Six Haunted Hairdos" costumes. Thelka leads the boys into the woods so that the "ghost beauticians" can do their jobs. The plan works out great and the boys got scared. Now the boys are even more sure that the baby elephant was a ghost. You should read this book to find out what happens with the ghost elephant and the "Six Haunted Hairdos".
This book's strengths are that it has good details and it is very compelling. It is a good book. The book's weakness is that at times, it can be a little bit confusing.
I think the author Gregory Maguire is a good author who knows how to use details. He writes good books. I would recommend this book to any reader who likes suspenseful, mysterious, and spooky books. If you enjoyed reading this book, then you should read the rest of the book series!

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Six Haunted Hairdos, June 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Six Haunted Hairdos (The Hamlet Chronicles) (Paperback)

Six Haunted Hairdos is the sequel to Seven Spiders Spinning. It is about to rival clubs, The Copycats (boys) and The Tatletails (girls). In this book the members of The Copycats believe in ghosts and state so in class. The Tatletails decide to play a joke on The Copycat's "silly" belief and give The Copycats their idea on girls thrown at them. This joke turns out to be less fake then they thought, as The Tatletails and The Copycats meet real ghosts and have to unite the ghosts, and set aside their club differences, before it's too late and Hamlet, their town, becomes filled with ghosts. This book is exciting and portrays some very interesting veiws on the rivalrey between boys and girls.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Six haunted Hairdos that make you Scream, January 25, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Six Haunted Hairdos (The Hamlet Chronicles) (Paperback)

In my language arts class we have to read three books every nine weeks. I have read my first book called Six Haunted Hairdos. As I read this book I went into a journey. I would love to take you with me on the journey again. So here we go!

Oh wow, look where we are. We are in the book called the Six Haunted Hairdos. Now we can see who the author is. The author is Gregory McGuire and he has a collection of books, just like this book I'm about to talk about. The book we are inside is a story. This book is also adventurous and has a lot of mystery in it.

Now we move to the first page of this book and we can work our way through the book. This book is about when Sammy Grubb and his club of the copycats try to convince the students of Josiah Fawcett Elementary that ghosts do exist. Thekla Mustard, who fronts the all girl club cynical tattletales, sees a perfect opportunity to spook up a plan and scare the boys. With the help of her friends they get together six wacky, crazy, and scary wigs, a lot of make-up, and some costumes. The tattletales transforms themselves into the six Haunted Hairdos, as they frightened the boys out of their pants. The tattletales give the boys a few scares. When Thekla Mustard takes her club to her house, they go up the room and Thekla congratulates them on what a fine job they did. When Pearl Hotchkiss hears the girls talking about scaring the boys again, Pearl runs to boy's club and tells the boys what the girls have been doing. So the boy's try to get back at the girls. When they get ready to scare the girls, all of a sudden an elephant comes out and Salim thinks it's a ghost of an elephant named baby Tusker. He thinks the ghost is coming to haunt him, but it wasn't. So they went to go find the tattletales after they made a plan. The girls went to go meet the boys and the boys said they wanted to meet the six haunted hairdos. Thekla said she didn't think they would come out, when all of a sudden the six haunted hairdos appeared. The girls ran down the hill and at the bottom they saw an elephant named baby Tusker.

Did you like the short story about the book? Now would you like to tell me any parts about the book you liked? I know I've got some, so here they are. The strong part of the book is that throughout the whole story it never gets boring and has good endings to each chapter. There are no weak parts to the book. Gregory McGuire has wonderful books because they are funny and interesting... I like that.

I think this book would be recommended for children in fourth grade through eighth grade. Well, I hoped you enjoyed your journey through this book. We've got to go before we get taken by a customer, so bye.
Sincerely, Hannah