Book Reviews: I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen and A Bedtime for Bear by Bonny Becker
Scene from interior of A Bedtime for Bear by Bonny Becker. Accompanying text reads: “WAIT!” said Bear. “You’ll want a bedtime story, I expect. For your nerves.” “For my nerves?” said Mouse. “Oh, indeed. I’m quite shaken.”
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I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
Genre: Picture Book
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Year Published: 2011
Format: eBook
Source: Library
My Rating: ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️
Book Summary: I Want My Hat Back
“A picture-book delight by a rising talent tells a cumulative tale with a mischievous twist.The bear’s hat is gone, and he wants it back. Patiently and politely, he asks the animals he comes across, one by one, whether they have seen it. Each animal says no, some more elaborately than others. But just as the bear begins to despond, a deer comes by and asks a simple question that sparks the bear’s memory and renews his search with a vengeance. Told completely in dialogue, this delicious take on the classic repetitive tale plays out in sly illustrations laced with visual humor — and winks at the reader with a wry irreverence that will have kids of all ages thrilled to be in on the joke.”
From the book description on Bookshop.org
My Review: ☕️☕️☕️☕️☕️
I haven’t treated myself to a picture book from the library in years, and that’s a shame. As I learned when my daughter was very young, picture books can be a uniquely joyful class of literature. If there’s anything my 2020 experience needs, it’s more joy. Perhaps you can relate.
Although I did not have a toddler handy to read this book with, the humor that shines through this book’s deceptively simple dialogue and the comfortingly chunky style of the illustrations gave me a much-needed chuckle on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
I highly recommend it.
A Bedtime for Bear by Bonny Becker
Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton
Genre: Picture Book
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Year Published: 2010
Format: ebook
Source: Library
My Rating: ☕️☕️☕️☕️
Book Summary: A Bedtime for Bear
“Denton’s ink and watercolor illustrations ably express the dry humor of Becker’s dialogue and personifications, which make this a bedtime standout.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
From the book description on Bookshop.org
Bear must have absolute quiet when he goes to bed. But the effervescent Mouse, small and gray and bright-eyed, finds it terribly hard to be as quiet as a . . . well, you know. With masterfully paced slapstick humor, droll repartee, and comic visual details, the curmudgeonly Bear and his irrepressible friend Mouse return in another wry adventure.
My Review: ☕️☕️☕️☕️
When she was small, my daughter was many things, but flexible about bedtime was not one of them. Like the grumpy old Bear in this charmingly illustrated picture book, my daughter needed everything just so before she could relax into sleep. She wouldn’t even consider going to sleep unless she had this many blankets, this particular set of stuffed animals, that type of pajama, this setting on her Twilight Turtle nightlight, exactly three stories, and the Making Light of It album by Pierce Pettis playing softly in the background. For years, this rigid set of requirements meant that sleepovers anywhere other than Grandma and Grandpa’s were just out of the question.
Grumpy old Bear with his nightcap, precisely fluffed pillow, and need for absolute and utter quiet perfectly captures that stubborn inflexibility of childhood, the excitement of sleepovers, and the worry many of us feel that the change in our sleep routines means we won’t get any sleep while our friends are there.
What about you?
What have you been reading lately?
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