"This Is Not My Hat" by Jon Klassen

Ok, so the goal of this blog was mostly to build my familiarity with teen literature.  This Is Not My Hat is a children's picture book that I was handed this morning.  I had to blog about it because it's so awesome.

Here is the plot:  a tiny fish steals a hat from a sleeping gigantic fish.  The tiny fish brags to the reader about his derring-do and how he has gotten away with the theft.  The tiny fish attempts to escape the notice of the gigantic fish by fleeing into the cover of some seaweed.  Slowly, the gigantic fish rouses himself and goes about tracking down the tiny fish.  In the final pages of the book (SPOILER ALERT) we see the gigantic fish enter the seaweed in which the tiny fish has concealed himself.  We don't see what happens in there, but the gigantic fish reemerges with his hat, looking quite smug.  What has happened to the tiny fish?  We are never told.  The last page of the book is a still shot of the seaweed, with no tiny fish to be seen.

This is not your typical children's book where all the characters figure out their differences and the final illustration depicts them all chummily sharing a birthday cake, or whatever.  Clearly, the tiny fish has received his comeuppance.  What kind of revenge has the gigantic fish exacted?  Is the tiny fish dead in the seaweed?  Did the gigantic fish eat him?  The reader is free to speculate.

The color palette of the illustrations makes the tone of the book even more ominous.  The predominant color is black, which I suppose is accurate since the book takes place at the bottom of the ocean.  The last image of the book, seaweed in the inky depths that may or may not contain the lifeless body of the book's narrator, was pretty jarring I thought.  Here is a picture of the tiny fish getting snitched on by a crab, while he glibly claims that this is something that will never happen:

Look at the seething menace on the face of that gigantic fish!  He is not playing!  He's going to get his damn hat back.

And what's the message here?  Typically we tell kids, "you shouldn't steal because it is the wrong thing to do."  Or, "stealing hurts people."  Instead, here the message is "children, you will NOT get away with stealing and you will probably catch a beating for it."  Also, "please do not think you have the world figured out, children."  This is most likely true, and I find the honesty pretty refreshing.

If you haven't read any picture books in awhile, do yourself a favor and pick one up.  Last week our Youth Services staff had a mock Caldecott Award committee exercise and I got to spend some time reading the nominees.  I had forgotten how amazing picture book art can be, especially when it's used in the service of a good story.

I'm not going to bother with adult readalongs here.  Just go read some children's books.  Our Youth Services staff picked More by Brian Lies as their favorite, but I was rooting for Chloe by Peter McCarty.  Also check out Extra Yarn by Jon Klassen (same author as above) and Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett (illustrated by Adam Rex).  Maybe listen to some Lullatone or Shugo Tokumaro to get in the proper mood.