New book celebrates the joys of seeing red

As the home of President Barack Obama, Illinois has a reputation as a blue state. But not for author Nicole Giladi.

"Illinois was my reddest state," say Giladi, author of a coffee-table book featuring photos of children with red hair. Available only at www.littleredheadsacrossamerica.com, the book "Little Redheads Across America" boasts kids from all 50 states, including several from our suburbs.

"A lot of people comment on it," mom Tracy Osborne of Wheaton says of the red manes on her three girls - twins Maggie and Ailish, 7-and-a-half, and Maeve, 4-and-a-half. "I've had people ask me if they could take our kids to show their hairdresser because they've been trying to get that color for 30 years."

The red-hair phenomenon was something Drew and Alicia Piech of Naperville didn't realize until their daughter, Aila, came along.

"I definitely noticed when my daughter was young, people ooh-ing and ahh-ing a lot about her hair," Alicia Piech says. "I think having a redhead raised my awareness of it - its uniqueness and its beauty."

Bright red locks have earned Taylor Moran of Aurora lots of modeling jobs for corporations such as McDonald's, Sears and American Girl.

"We've been told hundreds of times, it's because of the red hair," mom Laura Moran says. "When she was a baby, I had to figure on taking a little more time at the mall because people wanted to look at her because of her hair."

The 11-year-old Taylor, whose likeness has appeared on a Happy Meal box, says she has been aware of the attention her red hair garners since "I knew how to talk." One of the highlights of being in this book, however, was meeting the author.

"I found Nicole to be very inspirational to my children, especially since I have girls," says Laura Moran, whose other daughter, Sydney, is a strawberry blonde. "It was wonderful to meet a woman who is a mother and an author, who made her dreams come true."

Giladi didn't think about a book until she gave birth to twins, Sammy and Hannah, five years ago.

"My son came out with bright, copper-red hair," Giladi remembers. Neither she or her husband had red hair, but both carried the gene, she says.

Her research on the subject of red hair led to the idea for a book and a nationwide search for kids to be in it.

"I did everything but call preschools like some stalker or something," says Giladi, who found many of her subjects through twin clubs and private photographers.

Twin boys Alexander and Christopher Thompson, 9, of Libertyville made the book even though Alexander is the only one with true red hair. And he's a little "embarrassed" to draw any attention with his red hair or the freckles that accompany it, mother Tricia Stahl says.

The red locks make it easy to pick 7-year-old Joanna Morley out of class pictures, says mom Jeanette Morley of Arlington Heights, whose first daughter, Mary Clare, 10, has hair that is mostly brown.

"It was quite a surprise when we had Joanna and she was a redhead," the mom says. "It turned out one of my elderly aunts told me that my grandmother's sister had red hair."

Other suburban kids pictured in the book include Joanna Morley of Arlington Heights, Kyle Anderson of Flossmore, and Annie Redfern, Erin Williams, Hanna McDermott and Garrett Larson of Glenview.

Fewer than one in 25 Americans have red hair, and it is the rarest hair color in the world.

"I knew the world would look at my son differently," Giladi says, "and I wanted to create something to help him and other redheads truly understand how special they are."