I Want My Hat Back

This is a book that displays the picture book maker’s art at its best. Klassen uses word-image interplay and the drama of the turning page masterfully. It is a work that is minimal and post-modern, exquisitely designed and paced to achieve maximum humour and impact. Bear has lost his red hat. He sets off to find it, asking various animals, page by page, if they have seen it. Bear is not the brightest of buttons but he is eventually reunited with his beloved hat and we are left wondering whether or not he has taken revenge on the robber. Trying to tell the story in words alone however cannot do justice to a visual text such as this. This is a book that will give great pleasure to parents as well as children, leaving plenty of room for dramatic interpretation, theatrical expression and imagination.