Best Picture Books of The Decade: The Hat Trilogy by Jon Klassen

Throughout the month of December, we will be highlighting some of the best picture books of the decade. In this post, we will focus on The Hat Trilogy by Jon Klassen: https://thehattrilogy.com/

The 3 books of the trilogy spanned the decade and all become instant classics. 

I Want My Hat Back was released September 27th 2011 https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/214488/i-want-my-hat-back-by-jon-klassen/

This is Not My Hat was released October 9th 2012. https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/this-is-not-my-hat-9780763655990.html

We Found a Hat was released October 11th 2016. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545603/we-found-a-hat-by-jon-klassen/

Comedy in picture books often leans on being silly fun. Similarly, when picture books aimed at the preschool-first grade age range have a moral, it is usually a clean cut moral without a lot of shades of grey about which characters were right or wrong. In the first two books of The Hat Trilogy, we get a lot of dark gallows humor. In addition, at the end of the first two books, it a little ambiguous about which characters were in the right and what actions the characters even did. Characters in the first two books are liars and unreliable narrators. This can provide young children, early educators, parents, and families with the basis of a lot of interesting discussions. 

All the books feature simple text and illustrations that economically convey really strong emotions. As a preschool teacher, I always loved trying to change my voice to match the characters emotions and boom out things like “You Stole My Hat” when being The Bear in the second book or trying to have an arrogant mischievous tone when speaking as the small fish in the first book. Whenever I did that, my former preschool students would often laugh and later try to imitate the emotions in my voice that they heard when they read the book back. Moreover, the simple text and other cues in the illustration and the text like having different colors of text for different characters speaking these great books for children in the early stages of learning how to read and comprehend text. 

The last book, We Found a Hat has a different emotional tone and themes then the first two books. It is really a meditation on the nature of possession, sharing, and friendship. 

Whether you want children to laugh, learn to read, or discuss issues of morality, this trilogy of books is for you and represents some of the best picture books of the decade.