We Found a Hat by Jon Klassen

Two turtles. One cowboy hat. Who will wear the hat? We Found A Hat is a picture book told in three parts in the desert, in the style of a silent Western Film that introduces the upcoming scenes. Klassen is the master of sly humor. How can one turtle's eyes convey so much expression? Nevertheless, without them saying much, the readers can imagine what the turtles might be thinking. The text of the turtle that is speaking appears on the same page as the illustration of the turtle. 

What are you dreaming about?
I will tell you what I am dreaming about?

This is Klassen's third book about hats, following I Want My Hat Back and This Is Not My Hat. Klassen won the Kate Greenaway Medal in the UK and the Caldecott Medal in the United States in 2012 for This Is Not My Hat, and he is the only person to have won both medals in the same year.

As the sun sets in the desert in We Found A Hat, the turtles both try on the hat and try to forget that there is only one hat, and two of them. When one turtle says to the other, “What are you thinking about,” the other turtle replies, “Nothing.” His eyes slide to the left in slow-motion, where he is clearly eyeing the hat on the opposite page.

With pared down text, this conversation between two turtles is the perfect bedtime story to read aloud. Which turtle will wear the hat in the end? Read this book and find out! 

Author and Illustrator Jon Klassen

Mango and Bambang: The Not-a-Pig (Book One) by Polly Faber and Clara Vulliamy

“Mango Allsorts was good at all sorts of things. That was not the same as being good, but she was that, too. Most of the time. 

…

She had a nearly black belt in karate, and she could jump off the highest diving board at the swimming pool without holding her nose, use the Sicilian Defense when playing chess, and wiggle her ears while sucking on a lollipop.”

Mango is the kind of girl you want on your side. Brave, loyal, and willing to go the extra mile for a friend. Mango, while very good at all sorts of things, finds herself to be a little bit lonely in such a big city. When traffic is stopped one day, she investigates, and discovers an animal who will later introduce himself as Bambang. In her own gentle way, she calms the frightened animal. Amidst all the grownups who are shouting and yelling at the thing in the road to move, Mango makes herself very tall, declaring, “You are all being ridiculous. This is not a pig, or a danger. Anyone sensible can see this is clearly a tapir from the jungles of Malaysia. He must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.” 

And thus begins an epic friendship. In Book One alone, there are four different stories involving a curious cast of characters. Mango and Bambang are the stars, of course, but there is also “George-from-the-Tree-in-the-Park, keeper of caramels: avoider of baths,” and “Dr. Cynthia Prickle-Posset, a neighbor with a net; doesn’t like sweets or children.” 

Most joyously of all, Bambang is a talking tapir! There hasn’t been a story so clever, heartwarming, and absolutely delightful since we were introduced to Mercy Watson (who is, in fact, a pig). Polly Faber’s first installment reminds me a little of My Father’s Dragon, Ramona, but it is wholly original. Clara Vulliamy's illustrations are also incredible, and have the feel of a classic. I eagerly await Book Two, and advise all of you to run to your nearest bookstore to purchase this wonderful treasure of a book. 

Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo

Sometimes the pain in her heart made her feel too terrified to go on. Sometimes it made her want to drop to her knees. But then she would remember that she had a plan.

And what a plan it is. Ramie Clarke is going to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition. Her competitors? Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski. Learning to twirl a baton from Miss Ida Nee brings the girls together in a summer they will never forget.

Louisiana, the daughter of the Flying Elefantes, could not be more unlike her throw-caution-to-the-wind parents. She is rather delicate, always fainting or wheezing, and she has a Granny who drives like a whirling dervish and who can barely see above the steering wheel. Louisiana wants to be Little Miss Central Florida Tire and win the “king’s ransom” of the prize money. 

Beverly Tapinski, on the other hand, is a champion baton twirler, but she is out to sabotage the contest. When she introduces herself to Raymie, she says, “My name is Beverly Tapinski and my father is a cop, so I don’t think that you should mess with me.” Her hands are perpetually grubby, but she is someone you want on your team.

Raymie Clarke wants to win Little Miss Central Florida Tire so that her father, who ran away with a dental hygienist, will return home.

Three girls, so very different from each other, but who’s mutual mission and loneliness brings them closer than they could ever imagine. Sometimes, we find friendship is in those we least expect. It takes rescuing a library book, A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale, and rescuing each other, time and time again throughout the book, for the three girls to discover it takes friends to help you be brave, to help you carry on.

Kate DiCamillo is one of those writers who makes the reader want to hold onto every line. Reading Raymie Nightingale, your heart will ache, and it will also leave you laughing out loud. As three little girls set out to win Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975, they will win your heart as well.

This review originally appeared on Lemuria Books. 

Hour of the Bees by Lindsay Eagar

Carol (short for Carolina) is not happy that she will be spending her summer in the middle of nowhere in the New Mexican desert with only her family for company. Her grandfather, Serge, has Alzheimer’s, and alternates between moments of true lucidity and forgetfulness, sometimes calling Carol by her grandmother’s name, Rosa. Hour of the Bees is a place where the line between reality and magic is blurred, like the horizon line in the desert.

The red dust and the blue sky speak of a drought that has lasted over a hundred years. Time seems to have stood still, with only the shearing of sheep to indicate that time has past. Even Serge’s dog, Inés, is the same dog that Carol’s father had when he was young. When the bees start to appear in the bone dry desert, nobody believes Carol, except Serge.

“Bees, impossible. But it’s only impossible if you stop to think about it…If you see any more bees, chiquita, tell me. The bees will bring back the rain.”

Carol passes the summer listening to her grandfather’s made-up stories about a desert town that centered around a tree that healed injuries, where nobody every left, and where babies took years to become children. Telling these stories, Serge is the most lucid, especially when describing his wife, Rosa, Carolina’s grandmother.

“Every step she took, bees followed her in a halo around her head. They trailed behind her wherever she went. No one else in the village had the bees follow when they walked; only Rosa. No one knew why, but no one really asked why—the village had plenty of mysteries. Bigger mysteries.”

The longer Carolina stays in the desert, the more vivid these stories become until she thinks they might just be real. And why are there bees in the middle of a desert that only she can see? And her grandfather’s stories can’t be true—not when he describes a tree that gave a village life, and trees like that don’t grow in the desert.

Lindsay Eagar’s writing is lyrical, speaking of a landscape that, in the middle of its harshness, hides truly beautiful magic within. Hour of the Bees is magical-realism at its best for young readers.

Lindsay Eagar, author of Hour of the Bees