The King's Hats

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, said Shakespeare, and the crown is weighing heavy on our new King’s head in this lively picture book. Fortunately, his old friend Tom the gardener is there to offer advice and reassurance, pointing out that kings wear lots of hats. In the pages that follow, we see Charles III in Tom’s sunhat in the garden, and wearing a shower cap in the bath; he’s got a hard hat on a building site (adults will appreciate the sign on the digger he’s driving that reads Carbunckle and Sons); youngsters will like the hairnet he’s sporting at the factory making cakes. The expression on his face is spot on in the image of him standing surrounded by cows in a muddy field under a wide-brimmed rain-hat and there’s real joy in the page that shows him at a party, wearing a paper crown upside down to make the children laugh – and is that Archie swinging from the chandelier?

Mark Beech’s loose, energetic illustrations and Sheila May Bird’s rhyming text make this a fun book to share but there is a message that it’s natural to worry about taking on new responsibilities, whatever they are. Amongst the plethora of books being published to mark the coronation this will have a wide appeal.