Klassen, J. (2011). I want my hat back. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.Geisel Honor Book- 2012, New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book- 2011Choice A melancholy bear is on the search for his missing hat asking every animal he comes to if they had seen his hat. Realization finally dawns on him that the sneaky rabbit he asked was wearing a hat that looked very familiar to him. After he confronts the thief red handed, he gets his beloved hat back. I thought it was especially helpful to follow the dialogue of the animals because the text was printed in different colors. The digitally created illustrations in Chinese ink were simple and the text was large and easy to read for emerging readers. This would be a great tool to use in small language arts groups in K-2 classrooms where students can successfully identify specific sight words such as have, you, my, so, etc. while becoming confident independent readers due to the repeating text. Personally, I did not like this book as well as Jon Klassen's This Is Not My Hat (Caldecott Award, 2013), but I thought it was still an entertaining read. This book was actually really funny, i found myself laughing at a few parts! This book is about a bear who has lost his hat. He goes around the forest looking for it, and asks a lot of different animal friends on his way. All of them say that they haven't seen it, but someone is not telling the truth. This brings me to the major theme of the book, which is telling the truth. This book is more of a silly one than something that can fit into a certain lesson plan, but it is a good one to read because it is about how telling the truth would be better than if you lie to someone. I think it would be a good book to read for fun, not in any certain lesson, but just to teach the children about how important it is to tell the truth. If it has to be in a certain lesson plan, it would be something fun to read if the students were learning about bears or different animals. It isn't a factual book, but it could be something fun to start or end a unit about bears on!
What do You think about Wo Ist Mein Hut (2012)?
This is the best book ever. Where was this book when I was younger? READ IT TO ALL YOUR CHILDREN!!!
—Mahitha
One of the best-est children's book I've read!
—BCid
