This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen

 

 

1. Bibliography

Klassen, Jon. This Is Not My Hat. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press, 2012. 

2. Plot Summary

This illustrated children’s book by Jon Klassen tells the story of a shifty little fish who steals a hat from a much larger fish while he sleeps. Sure that he will get away with his crime, and convinced that his crime is harmless and justifiable due to the suitable size of the hat, the little fish swims through the ocean, hat on head, passing a crab along the way, to the place “where the plants are big and tall and close together”. Will the big fish really not realize his hat has been stolen? Will he find the little fish? Will he take drastic measures to get his hat back?     

3. Critical analysis

Fans of Jon Klassen will be familiar with and love the amusing, albeit slightly unethical, characters in this story of a stolen little blue bowler hat. Readers will quickly recognize the sly nature of the little fish when turning the first page to see Klassen’s opening illustration, a large black, full page picture of the ocean’s underwater containing only a teeny fish wearing a teeny hat, his eyes looking back with worry and guilt. Klassen humorously highlights the contrasting size of the enormous big fish through his large double page illustrations and the size of the tiny fish through more black space filled pages. The story is told more through the illustrations of the characters and their expressive fish eyes than it is through the words on the pages. Readers will be thrilled as they realize and can predict that everything that the little fish assures us through short statements on each page will not happen, is happening right before their eyes. After the anticipation builds to a peak, and the big fish begins swimming back with his hat, the wordless, illustrated ending leaves readers wondering what became of the little fish. If Klassen’s other stories are any indication, they can speculate that it was indeed a grievous ending for the little fish. 

4. Awards and Review Excerpt(s)

• 2013 Caldecott Medal
  
• 2015 Kate Greenaway Medal
  
• From Horn Book Reviewer Robin L. Smith: “The vertical lines of the barely undulating underwater plants rest against the horizontal streams of air bubbles that mark the forward motion in the illustrations, controlling the story and propelling it at the same time”
  
• From School Library Journal’s Caroline Ward: “This not-to-be-missed title will delight children again and again.

5. Connections

Gather other Caldecott Medal Books to read such as:

• Blackall, Sophia. Hello Lighthouse. ISBN 9780316362382
  
• Alexander, Kwame. The Undefeated. ISBN 1328780961
  

Gather other Jon Klassen books to read such as:

• I Want My Hat Back. ISBN 0763655988
  
• We Found A Hat. ISBN 0763656003
  

Use with Jon Klassen’s other books to discuss author’s style. 

Use as a model for making predictions. 

Have students write their own endings.