Jan Brett’s picture book The Hat was published in 1997, but it could easily have been published 10, 20, even 50 years earlier. It has a classic, timeless feel to it.
Some of this is due to the technology portrayed: everything included in the book’s lovely paintings could have been found on a 19th century farm.
More of this, though, is due to the focus and story. When winter’s on the way, Lisa, a human girl, hangs her cold weather clothes on a clothesline. The wind blows a (lovely) long stocking off the line. Hedgie the hedgehog sticks his head in out of curiosity, and the stocking gets “stuck on his prickles.” The other animals tease Hedgie for having a sock on his head, but he claims–to the hen, the gander, the cat, the dog, the pigs, and the pony–that he’s wearing the sock as a hat by choice, to be ready for the cold weather. By the end of these interactions, Hedgie’s tired of being laughed at.
Just then Lisa shows up and takes her stocking back, telling Hedgie he’s silly because animals don’t wear clothes. On her way back to the clothesline, she sees all the other animals wearing various pieces of clothing, all thinking that now they’re “wearing a magnificent hat.”
The book ends with Lisa chasing the animals, trying to get her winter clothes back, and Hedgie watching and laughing at the other animals.
A classic children’s story structure: the status quo is disrupted, first by winter, then by the wind, then by Hedgie’s luck. Then a sequence and a reversal: Hedgie’s embarrassed, but convinces the other animals he’s happy (echoing “The Emperor’s New Clothes”).
And the images are lovely. Two-page spreads give a sense of the sweep of the place, and give Brett a chance to center the main image and frame it with medallions and complex decorative borders. The main images communicate story action; the smaller images give a sense of what else is going on in the family home (and the weather, tugging at clothes on the line).
Complex. Focused. Gentle. I’ll read more Jan Brett.
