A lonely, creative child who longed for a more exciting environment than the desert where she was raised, Edith Head was good at entertaining herself. She loved to dress up her animals and toys in ribbons and feathers, and she collected fabric scraps to make doll clothes. She put costumes together, too, for her friends’ plays. As a high school student in Los Angeles, Edith discovered movies, and after college she became a sketch artist in a Hollywood costume department—despite a complete lack of drawing skill. With diligent practice, and at least one early career failure, Edith moved up the ranks, designing costumes first for animals, then for dancers, and finally for movie stars. She became so skilled, in fact, that she won eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design. Clean illustrations with plenty of white space accompany the biography of this exceptionally confident, determined, and passionate artist.  (Ages 5-7)

Discover the true story of how a shy miner’s daughter became one of the most legendary costume designers in Hollywood in this inspiring nonfiction picture book biography.

As a child in the small mining town of Searchlight, Nevada, Edith Head had few friends and spent most of her time dressing up her toys and pets and even wild animals using fabric scraps. She always knew she wanted to move somewhere full of people and excitement. She set her sights on Hollywood and talked her way into a job sketching costumes for a movie studio.

Did she know how to draw or sew costumes? No. But that didn’t stop her!

Edith taught herself and tirelessly worked her way up until she was dressing some of the biggest stars of the day, from Audrey Hepburn to Grace Kelly to Ginger Rogers. She became the first woman to head a major Hollywood movie studio costume department and went on to win eight Academy Awards for best costume design—and she defined the style of an era.