I Want My Hat Back Again and Again

I Want My Hat Back
By Jon Klassen
Candlewick Press
$15.99
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5598-3
Ages 4-eight
On shelves September 27th.

I knew it! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! When Caroline Stutson's Cats' Night Out was released by Simon & Schuster in 2010 information technology contained fine art by an animator going past the moniker of Jon Klassen. And frankly I just thought information technology contained some of the slickest fine art I'd seen in a picture book in a long while. I hardly even noticed that he was the aforementioned guy backside the pictures found in The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place past Maryrose Forest. Withal and all, until now he hadn't illustrated his own volume. I was adequately certain he might at some point, and I wasn't sure I'd be looking forward to it. I mean, I thought the homo was grand, only could he tell a story? Well, turns out I was right most the fact that his art is magnificent and now, with the release of his first author/illustrator flick book I Want My Hat Back, Klassen shows once and for all that his storytelling talents match his illustration technique pound for pound.

A bear has lost his lid. To find it he questions a variety of woodland creatures including a flim-flam, a frog, a turtle, a possum, a dear, a snake and a rabbit. The rabbit, for the record, refuses to acknowledge having seen the hat in spite of the fact that he appears to be wearing information technology. And when the bear realizes the true culprit there volition be a price to pay. A deeply amusing price. Painted with Chinese ink and digital art, Klassen's volume falls into that growing category of subversive film books out in that location. What makes it stand out, even so, is how beautifully put together it all is.

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A criticism leveled at the aforementioned Cats' Night Out involved the expressionless faces of Klassen's kitties. Here you had a book where felines engage in a variety of different dances, yet their faces retain the exact same universal look of deep concentration. I idea it was a hoot. Other folks felt it made the cats too cold and static. And then information technology will be with corking interest that I sentinel the disquisitional reception of I Want My Hat Dorsum. That is because hither, being expressionless isn't but the name of the game, information technology'southward a comedic technique. Klassen tin can practise more with the set of this bear's head than most artists do with entire bodies. And watch how the eyes piece of work in this book. For most of the spreads the bear and other animals are looking right at you lot. All that changes the instant the bear lies on the footing, despairing of ever finding his lid over again. Now his eyes, and the eyes of the other characters, are looking at one another. It isn't until yous get to the last insurrection de grace that you realize that the behave is looking at y'all once again.

Equally I mentioned before, Mr. Klassen is i of those animators-turned-moving-picture show-book-artists. Usually when you encounter one of these (similar, say, Tony Fucile or Carter Goodrich) their strength lies in the sheer number of expressions they can pack into a given graphic symbol. Klassen seems to have taken a directly 180-degree turn in the opposite direction. Expressions here are all nearly the subtleties, just in spite of that yous can still tell he has a cinematic groundwork. For example, there is his use of the pregnant break. At one moment two characters confront one some other on a wordless two-page spread and with just the slightest tweak to their pupils, Klassen creates a world of tension. At that place's also his apply of colour (a sudden red infusion on a folio where the bear realizes where he terminal saw his chapeau) and sudden movement. Essentially, this artist has figured out that picture books bear more similarities to short films than whatsoever other literary medium (I might make an exception for graphic novels when I say that). The result? He makes the maximum apply of the form.

Then there's the language. Klassen utilizes very simple words hither, and right from the kickoff the reader is struck by how polite the characters are. Each time the comport finds himself disappointed he offers a quiet "Thank y'all anyhow" and moves forth. The turtle as well says, "Aye, delight" when the comport offers to place him on top of a stone he's been trying to climb . Actually, only the rabbit is a rude critter here, and we know where rudeness will get y'all (don't we children?). Bated from the stellar pacing which allows the story to flow seamlessly I also loved Klassen'southward apply of the Rule of Three. We see two characters that have not seen the behave's hat to establish the storyline, then run smack dab into the sneaky rabbit. It makes it all the funnier when the carry continues his quest, oblivious of the rabbit's incredibly obvious guilt. So while I haven't tried this book as a readaloud quite yet, I have high hopes. If the adults don't freak out over the catastrophe, of course.

Why would an ending cause parental concern? Well, I don't desire to give anything away, merely I volition say that the book ends with a kind of Emily Gravett/Mini Grey finish. Which is to say, it has a twisted, virtually British sense of humor to information technology. Consider this your official spoiler alert if yous similar. All set? Okay, then in the concluding sequence in the book a squirrel inquires after the rabbit and the bear replies with a long, shaken response that pretty much makes it clear as crystal that he ate the offending bunny. This is followed, interestingly enough, by a concluding silent two-page spread of the deport sitting alone. It's interesting that Klassen preceded that spoken communication with the bear maxim, "I dear my hat" and doesn't end the volume with that statement instead. Nonetheless and all, the American consumer is not used to finding devoured bunnies in picture books. The fact that the carry has done so off-screen (as it were) will practise little to alleviate tender parental fears. Allow me to point out and so that due to Klassen's sophisticated storytelling, small children will not understand the rabbit's fate, while the cannier older ones will not only go the joke just revel in it. When we recommend picture books to four through viii year olds, we rarely see titles that really do span the spectrum. This book is one of the few. Plus I was really amused by how torn up the plants that had been around the rabbit end up when the bear sits contentedly with his hat at the end.

If I were to sum up this movie book in i give-and-take I think I would become with this: Deadpan. And deadpan movie books are rare beasts indeed. They can be done (Edward Gorey's work comes to mind) but pulling them off and so that they're every bit appealing to children as they are to adults is no pocket-size feat. I think Klassen got away with it here, though. It'll exist the wry child that takes to I Desire My Lid Back but the world is full of wry youth. So equally consider both the five-twelvemonth-onetime in your life every bit well as the irony-filled college grad when looking for the right gift. Klassen is straddling the market and we end upwardly the winners. A great little book.

On shelves September 27th.

Source: Galley received from co-worker for review.

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Source: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2011/05/28/review-of-the-day-i-want-my-hat-back-by-jon-klassen/