This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen

Klassen, J. (2012). This is not my hat. Sommerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen is a simple, humorous picture book that won the Caldecott Medal in 2013. A sneaky little fish steals a bowler hat from a sleeping, much larger fish and swims away insisting page after page that he will not get caught. Little does he know that the big fish is on his tail and finally recovers his hat after all! The illustrations are very simple and consist of the little fish, the big fish, the hat, and some seawood all placed on a dark black background. The light colored fish are in stark contrast to the dark background making the reader’s eye focus on the fish, the main characters. This book would be best for younger preschool aged or early elementary school aged students do to the simple comedy and design. The illustrations very subtly show emotion through eye movements and color, therefore, a teacher could use this book to help young readers determine the emotions of the characters. The students could act out different emotions using just their own faces to practice. At the end of the book, the big fish gets his hat back but the reader does not get to see how it happens. Students could make a prediction about what happened when the big fish swam into the seaweed behind the little fish and then came out with his hat. Overall, I did not enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed the other Caldecott books that I read. It was okay, but I was somewhat turned off by the smug attitude of the little fish and I did not particularly love that fact that he was stealing. While I did not enjoy this book, I can see how young children might enjoy the story.

(Image from candlewick.com)