Book Reflection: I Want My Hat Back

I've decided to start an occasional (knowing me, very occasional) series of book reviews for books that have bears in them. Because I like bears. This isn't so much a review of the book as a review combined with a pointless ramble about where my brain went as a result of thinking about the book.

So, more of a "book reflection" than a "book review".

I'm kicking things off with my most recent purchase:

I Want My Hat Back, by Jon Klassen.

This book kind of sneaks up on you. The first time you read it, it seems a bit plodding and, dare I say it, not very interesting... right up until you get to the last few pages, when it's entirely possible you will find yourself uttering an involuntary "Hah!"

You see, the whole book is basically a wind up to a punchline. It's just a very subtle and understated wind up to a very neatly done punchline. It will no doubt tickle the funny bones of many children, and I expect many a household has been reduced to fits of giggles by this one. I wasn't rolling around on the floor laughing, but I'm also not three-to-five years old (and, sadly, do not have any three-to-five year old co-readers), so I'm not exactly the target audience. It still made me utter an involuntary "Hah!", and I had a smile on  my face at the end of it.

In subsequent readings, you know what is coming and you know how sly the humour is, so I can imagine scores of four-year-olds start giggling the minute they see the rabbit.

The bear you see on the cover of the book has lost its hat. It asks everyone it meets if they have seen its hat, but no one has... or is one of them lying?

The book is part of a trilogy of hat books, including We Found a Hat and This is Not My Hat. I haven't read the other books, but from what I can tell they are unrelated stories, linked purely by the central role a hat plays in the plot.

I mentioned above that I'm not three-to-five years old, and am therefore not in the target audience for this book. I haven't been three-to-five years old for quite some time now, and yet I've always maintained that such a technicality is no reason why I should stop reading picture books. I am also in a situation where I have no children in my life. I don't have any kids of my own, and I have no nephews or nieces. I am a librarian, but I'm an academic librarian, so I rarely read books to children (I've done it a few times in my job, but not for years).

I still think "childhood" is not a prerequisite for reading picture books written for children. I love poetry, art and good stories, and you get all of these things in abundance in the picture book section of the bookshop or library. So I happily borrow and buy these books for myself, even though I am not a child and I don't have any regular contact with children.

But I realised, on thinking about this book, that sometimes it helps to be four years old. I was a tired and grumpy adult when I read it for the first time. I had read a recommendation of the book by Jenny  Colgan, who that said it was very funny and made her laugh every time she read it. I was expecting it to be highly amusing. And yet I read it, and found it only mildly amusing. It was, I suppose, "laugh out loud" funny, in that I did, indeed, utter an involuntary "Hah!" But overall it was... well... "okay I guess?"

It was only on reflection that I realised a four-year-old would probably crack up at the point where I uttered my involuntary "Hah!" And would probably crack up every time they thought about it for hours afterwards. And would probably crack up in anticipation of that moment on subsequent re-readings. They would probably also crack up every time a member of their family answered a "have you seen my...?" question with "I haven't seen it. I wouldn't steal a ... Don't ask me any more questions."

You do see the world differently when you're only three-feet tall and you still enjoy knock-knock jokes about interrupting cows.

Sometimes I really miss being four.