Peluquería Alegría (The Happiness Hair Salon)
The Happiness Hair Salon tells the story of Eduardo, a hairdresser who cuts all sorts of people's hair, and finds the right solutions for all the different people who come into his salon with their problems, sending them away with the hair they wanted and their problem solved. But the author introduces a little mystery right from the beginning, as there is obviously something bothering Eduardo, even though his haircuts are making his customers happy, and this adds a little incentive to draw in the reader from the beginning.
The different customers that come into the salon and all their different problems, represented in their need for a new haircut, make the story appealing to a wide audience. There are politicians and sports teams, naughty children and pets, somebody for all different readers to relate to. And the hair solutions that Eduardo finds for each of them can be given as much or as little meaning as every reader wants to deduce, making the story more appealing to a wider age range too.
… the book is designed to encourage children to discuss the story and the pictures to think about what they see. The pictures add humour to the story and offer plenty of possibility to inspire different conversations, and also speculation as to what the reason might be for Eduardo's sighs.
The story itself already has a global appeal, without any need for further adaptation for a different readership, and introduces some cultural ideas. Although one aspect of a translation would be to decide how much unknown culture to maintain, depending on its purpose, which might be an appealing prospect for publishers wanting to deliberately familiarise young readers with different ideas. The range in characters can all be relevant in a foreign or global society and their problems are things that families and children can relate to on a general level. For this reason the book would be easily marketable in an English-speaking environment, appealing to a wide audience. The amusing storyline and funny pictures make the book good entertainment for family reading, for siblings of different ages, or for group reading in schools, and so a publisher might want to include promotion of the book specifically to an academic market as well as a more general one.
From the reader´s report by Suky Taylor [1]
Links:
[1] http://www.newspanishbooks.com/bio/suky-taylor-5