Picture Book Monday - A review of Red Hat

As every parent and pet owner knows, young children and animals often get a great deal of pleasure playing with things that are not toys. For example, instead of playing with the toy barn they were given, children play with the box that the barn came in. Instead of playing with the catnip mouse that cost far too much, the cat plays with a cork that fell on the floor.

In today's book you will meet some young animals who play with a red hat and who have a wonderful time doing so.

Red Hat

Lita Judge

Picture Book

For ages 4 to 6

Simon and Schuster, 2013, 978-1-4424-4232-0

It is a pleasant sunshiny day a little girl sets up her washtub on the grass in front of her home and washes her red knitted hat. When it is clean, she carefully pins it to the clothes line by its white tassel, and the she goes back into her little house. Some rabbits and a pair of bears see the hat on the line and they decide that it would make a grand toy. As soon as the bear cub gets its paws on the hat, it runs off, with the rabbits in hot pursuit. Then a raccoon snags the hat from its tasseled end and gallops off with the hat on its head.

As the raccoon runs, the hat sprouts a long red piece of yarn from its pointy top with the tassel hanging on the end. A little rabbit manages to snag the yarn, and a tiny mouse is thrilled when it manages to grab hold of the yarn near the tassel. How rewarding little triumphs of this kind can be! The adventure is not over though. The hat and the young playful animals have more to do.

Lita Judge, who brought us the picture book Red Sled, is a gifted storyteller who manages to tell her tale without using any real words at all. The only sounds this book offers readers are the noises that the young animals make as they steal, play with, and then return the hat. Children are going to love the surprise ending, which brings the tale to a wonderful close.