Michigan twins' red hair gets noticed

Pair featured in book about U.S. kids with rarest color of locks

Darby Prater / Associated Press

Convis Township -- Being a redhead can be a reason for teasin' for some kids, but it is being hailed as an uncommonly beautiful trait in a book called "Little Redheads Across America," featuring twins from Calhoun County's Convis Township.

The 88-page book features photos and descriptions of 400 children, each presented on pages for each U.S. state. It also includes fun facts about redheads, such as that it is a recessive gene and the rarest hair color in the world.

The 4-year-old twins, Payton and Cooper Otto, appear on page 43 in their Halloween costumes: Peter Pan and Tinker Bell.

"The year before that, they were Raggedy Ann and Andy, because of their red hair," said the twins' mom, Mindy Otto, who runs a Web site, www.just4twins.com.

That Web site is part of the reason the book's author, Nicole Giladi, contacted Otto.

"Nicole contacted our twins group to see if there were any redheads in our group," Otto said. "We sent pictures in. They were only 18 months old at the time."

Giladi said only about 2 percent to 4 percent of the U.S. population has red hair in any form, from the lightest strawberry blond to the darkest auburn. Otto said her twins have received lots of attention for their locks.

"Since they've been born, they've gotten stopped more because of their hair than because of the fact that there's two of them," Otto said.

The book also dispels myths, such as that redheads would become extinct by the year 2060, which Giladi says is not true because the gene would live on through non-redheads who carry it. Giladi and her husband, both brunettes, got a surprise when one of their twins had red hair.

Giladi, 39, found very little reading material about the uniqueness of redheads, so she decided to write her own.

The book is available on her Web site, www.littleredheadsacrossamerica.com.