This Is Not My Hat Book Review by Jon Klassen

 

Written by Jon Klassen 

Published by Candlewick Press in 2012

ISBN: 978-0763655990

Plot Summary: A small fish has stolen a hat from a big fish and is very proud of himself for seemingly getting away with it. The big fish is sleeping so that little fish thinks he is in the clear as he doesn't believe the big fish will know that it was him. The big fish ends up waking up and while the little fish is hiding from him, the crab rats out the little fish to the big fish who then takes his hat back and is wearing the hat at the end of the story. 

Analysis: This is a very simple story about thinking that you are in the clear when you have done something wrong and it ends up coming back to bite you. The author uses very simple language to get across the message that stealing is wrong and that owning up to your mistake is always better in the long run. The illustrations are on a black background for most of the story which represents the ocean. There isn't another illustrator given credit for the pictures. The size of the little fish in comparison to the big fish shows that sometimes the small can be just as mighty through the use of stealth. 

Book Reviews

Kirkus Book Review

Klassen combines spare text and art to deliver no small measure of laughs in another darkly comic haberdashery whodunit.

While not a sequel to I Want My Hat Back (2011), the story does include a hat, a thief (a little fish) and a wronged party (a big fish). This time, first-person narration follows the thief, whose ego far outstrips his size as he underestimates the big fish’s tracking abilities. Meanwhile, much of the art follows the big fish on his hunt, creating a pleasing counterpoint with the text. For example, a page reading “…he probably won’t notice that it’s gone” shows not the thieving piscine narrator but the big fish looking up toward the top of his own bare head; he clearly has noticed that his hat is gone, and the chase is on! Sublime book design exploits the landscape format, with dogged movement from left to right across the double-page spreads. This culminates in a page reading “I knew I was going to make it,” as the little fish disappears on the recto into plants evocative of Leo Lionni’s setting in Swimmy (1963), while a narrow-eyed big fish enters the verso. The little fish is clearly doomed—a fact coyly confirmed by wordless page turns revealing the big fish swimming away, now from right to left, hat firmly on head.

Hats off! (Picture book. 4-8)

Connections

Read Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94xBLFPY124

Teaching Children Morals about Lying and Stealing

Social Emotional Learning Activity: You can talk with your children about how you might feel when things are taken from you without your permission and how it feels to own up to your mistakes



  1. 978-0763655990
  1. 978-0763655990
    1. 978-0763655990
      1. 978-0763655990
        1. 978-0763655990
          1. 978-0763655990
            1. 978-0763655990
              1. 978-0763655990
                1. 978-0763655990
                  1. 978-0763655990
  1. 978-0763655990
  1. 978-0763655990
  1. 978-0763655990

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