'This Is Not My Hat' by Jon Klassen

Klassen, Jon.  2012.  This Is Not My Hat.  Ill. by Jon Klassen.  Somerville: Candlewick Press.  ISBN 9780763655990.

Photo by: L. Propes

This Is Not My Hat is narrated by a cheeky small fish, who unabashedly admits he's stolen a hat from a much larger fish on the grounds that 1) the hat is too small for its owner, and 2) the owner won't miss it at all.  No sir.  Not at all.  The story starts with a bang as the fish, "wastes no time or words in confessing his crime..." (Janssen 2012).  Of course the big fish does notice his beloved hat is gone and swims off in pursuit.  The smaller fish is blithely unconcerned that he might get caught, certain that he will manage to swim to a place, "where the plants grow big and tall and close together" (Klassen 2012).  A place where he can hide and the larger fish cannot possibly hope to find him.

This 2013 Caldecott Award winner would be a perfect addition for any classroom library to teach a range of subjects from prediction to irony.  The sentences are set above the illustrations, offering a sly counterpoint to one another.  The illustrations of the big fish's reactions of discovering his hat is missing directly contradict the narration of the small fish.  Younger children will enjoy the on-the-edge-of-the-seat quality of the chase and the two-page "silent" illustrated spread that comes after  the larger fish has indeed caught up with the narrator that leaves the audience wondering if the bigger fish did catch the smaller fish, and if so, just exactly what happens.  Klassen does resolve the story, but manages to leave a small opening in the ending where a teacher can ask the class to imagine how the story is resolved.  The action rises gently as the smaller fish makes one pronouncement, followed by a contingency plan that pushes the plot forward.  The climax and resolution follow hard upon one another, but because Klassen chooses not to narrate either of those parts of the plot development, they float to the reader/audience as if on an ocean's current.

Klassen's illustrations are rendered in ink, then scanned into a computer, where he manipulates the images with Photoshop (Danielson, 2011).  The illustrations for This Is Not My Hat are fairly monochromatic greys and browns against a black background.  It sounds like it might not work, but it does.  The colors of the fish and vines jump off the page.  The illustrations are also somewhat flat (more in the manner of two-dimensional, rather than lack of vividness) and the effect is rather retro and reminiscent of picture books from an earlier age.  Facial expressions are done with a simple change of an eye, but it speaks volumes.  Klassen judiciously uses air bubbles to evoke the mood of the larger fish (fewer bubbles, the angrier he becomes) and to denote movement (faster movement, more bubbles).  Publishers Weekly said, "Klassen excels at using pictures to tell the parts of the story his unreliable narrators omit or evade" (Publishers Weekly 2012).  

This Is Not My Hat is seen as a sequel of sorts to Klassen's I Want My Hat Back.  (Incidentally, I Want My Hat Back was a Theodore Seuss Geisel finalist in 2012 and won the ALA Notable Books for Children award in 2012 and Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books in 2011.)  The Classroom Bookshelf blog lists activities and lessons using This Is Not My Hat and other picture books for a range of grades from preschool to 8th grade. 

I would highly recommend this book for any classroom, school, or personal library.  Younger children may realize what the smaller fish has done is wrong, and parents could use it as an introduction to discussing the consequences of one's actions to children from a variety of angles.  Even though children's books aren't reqired to be moralistic (Vardell 2008), Klassen manages to convey that no crime goes unpunished without getting preachy or shoving it in the face of his audience.

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Works Cited

This is not my hat. 2012. Publishers Weekly 259 (35) (08/27): 74-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccx&AN=79449374&site=ehost-live&scope=site. 

Danielson, Julie. Seven questions over breakfast with jon klassen. 2011 [cited January 23 2014]. Available from http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2189. 

Janssen, Carolyn1. 2012. This is not my hat. School Library Journal 58 (9) (09): 116-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brd&AN=79888301&site=ehost-live&scope=site. 

Klassen, Jon. 2012. This is not my hat. Somerville: Candlewick Press. 

Vardell, Sylvia M. 2008. Children's literature in action: A librarian's guide. Westport: Libraries Unlimited.