Mr. Pierce’s barbershop is the place to be according to the young Black narrator of this joyful picture book. “Razors and roaring laughter. Scissors and stories. Tonics and tunes on the radio.” But the shop is more than a barbershop. It’s also an art gallery, full of the wood carvings that Mr. Pierce has created. Mr. Pierce tells the boy that he started carving when he was a boy himself. “I could see a picture that I liked, or a person would tell me a story … and I’d get me a piece of wood and start to carve it. … Everything I carve, I want it to tell some kind of story.” This inventive, inspired introduction to Black folk artist Elijah Pierce imagines an encounter between Pierce and a fictional Black child in the late 1970s. But Pierce’s barbershop gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and the astonishing body of work he created are real, as are the quotes from Pierce throughout the story. Pierce’s work ranged from animals to Bible stories to portraits to personal history. Photographs of 11 of his pieces are included in the end matter, along with an informative author’s note, a timeline, and illustrator’s note. The illustrator used the mokuhanga printmaking process along with collage to make striking images perfectly suited to a book about a folk artist. (Ages 7-11)