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

Pax by Sara Pennypacker and illustrated by Jon Klassen

I think that my most favorite kind of book is an illustrated middle-grade. Sara Pennypacker, author of the series Clementine, Summer of the Gypsy Moths, and The Dullards, has written a glorious story for children ages 8-12. Better yet, Caldecott winning artist Jon Klassen has illustrated it. It is titled, simply, Pax. Pax is the story of a journey. It is the story of a fox and his boy, Pax and Peter. A story of friendship, of love, and of war and peace.

Peter has raised Pax as his pet. When as an unnamed war is about to start, and Peter’s father must go serve, Peter is sent to go live with his grandfather, and Pax is left behind in the woods. Armed with only a backpack filled with peanut butter (Pax’s favorite) some matches, duct tape, garbage bags (to use as a poncho in the rain) a gold charm bracelet, string cheese, two oranges, and his baseball and glove, Peter decides to make the three hundred mile trek back home to find Pax again. Boy and fox are inseparable, and in the face of war, the master of tearing things asunder, they make parallel journeys towards each other in the hopes of being reunited.

Pax loved his boy, but more than that, he felt responsible for Peter, for protecting him. When he couldn’t perform this role, he suffered.

Pax shook the night’s rain off his back and headed for the road without even stretching his stiff muscles, straining for his boy’s scent.

Peter and Pax’s journey will take them far from home. They will meet people (and other foxes) who will change their lives, and in turn, they will also make a difference in the world they live in.

Peter meets an important lady named Vola. She asks Peter, “So which is it? You going back for your home or for your pet?”

“They’re the same thing,” Peter said, the answer sudden and sure, although a surprise to him.

Pax is a heart wrenching book that you will want to read over and over again. Pennypacker’s words will have the reader feel the ground beneath Peter’s feet, and see the trees waving in the wind over Pax’s head in the dark forest. This book examines why we make the choices we make, and better yet, shows that grownups should listen carefully to children, and also, foxes. With vivid imagery from Sara Pennypacker, and Klassen’s earthen toned illustrations, Pax is a great read for kids.

This article originally appeared in The Clarion Ledger.

An Unorthodox Collaboration

Most writers and artists who work on picture books together do not meet until after their book is published. Rarely does the author get to pick the artist. But when Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) saw a piece of art by Jon Klassen in which the dark spoke, he was inspired to write a picture book called The Dark.

When I got to speak with them about their unorthodox collaboration for Kirkus Reviews, Handler said, "For a moment, it looked like The Dark was going to be Jon Klassen's first book, and then it looked like it was going to be his lifetime achievement award." 

Interestingly, Handler similarly approached author-artist Maira Kalman about working together on a picture book called 13 Words, which led eventually to the Printz honor–winning novel Why We Broke Up. Both Klassen and Kalman have an uncanny ability to tell stories through visual details. 

Daniel Handler, Neil Gaiman and Jon Klassen (l.-r.)
Photo credit: Cheryl Simon

We got to host the first "performance" of The Dark at the School for Children at the Bank Street College of Education. Their dynamic presentation was a comedy of opposites: Daniel Handler, standing in for Lemony Snicket, as the gregarious jokester, played against Jon Klassen as the nearly silent poker-face partner. Neil Gaiman also made an appearance as the voice for the audiobook (the only book he's recorded that he did not also write, he told us when he visited Bank Street).

Handler and Klassen's real-time banter in many ways played out the way they described collaborating on the book. Their push and pull allows children to be active participants; as readers, they sense young Laszlo's growing confidence as he confronts the dark (after his night light burns out) and uses his flashlight like a beacon to navigate to the darkest, remotest corner of his house.

Handler and Klassen's respect for each other is profound, but they also have a great deal of fun together, as you will discover in this recap of their performance (by Bank Street archivist Lindsey Wyckoff, with many photos), and in the "review" of their stage presentation by Betsy Bird (aka Fuse #8 and the New York Public Library's Youth Materials Collections Specialist.).

Jon Klassen

Jon Klassen

On Monday, January 28, 2013, at the ALA Midwinter conference in Seattle, Jon Klassen won the 2013 Caldecott Medal for This Is Not My Hat (Candlewick), the second book that he has both written and illustrated. He also received a Caldecott Honor citation for Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins), a dual honor that was last accomplished by Leonard Weisgard in 1947.

How do your stories evolve?
I've only written two, so it's hard to find a pattern so far. But for the second one, it's not so much a plot as it is a way that the text and pictures contrast. The little fish says, "He probably won't wake up for a long time," and the big fish's eye opens, and you have a book. That page is the idea for the book. It's the structure. Once you have that relationship between the pictures and the book, then you're off. Writing is so intimidating--so's illustrating I guess, but the two have to lean against each other. The more of a job you give each one, the less pressure you have on either one individually.

Tell us about the crab.
The crab is a fun guy. I'm surprised by how evenly divided children are about him. Half of them think he was always a sellout, and half thinks, "No, he's scared." There are a lot of advantages to not narrating. You put the person in the situation, and then you can say, "What do you think about this guy?" When you ask kids about the little fish in this one, even if they're divided about the crab, they're less divided about what happened to the little fish. When you ask, "Do you think the little fish is okay?," there's always one or two hopeful kids.

When you spoke at the Horn Book at Simmons Colloquium this past fall, you talked about the illustration in Extra Yarn in which we see evidence of the robbers' theft of the yarn. Could you talk about how you worked that out?
You can't show certain things. With the rules we'd set up, I couldn't see a way to show three men in her room without scaring myself or anyone else. You choose the moment in time when you can imply the most. By showing the moment after, the ladders were still there and the light was on, which meant she'd discovered the theft, and the dog was chasing after them. You can do a lot by implication.

This excerpt of an interview with Jon Klassen was taken from a longer piece for Shelf Awareness Pro.

Abundance

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen, is a story about abundance. It’s about one person, Annabelle, a child living in a dreary city, who tries to cheer up a jeering peer by making him a sweater. That leads to another sweater and another sweater, all rainbow-colored, each brightening the gray, wintry city and lightening the mood of her neighbors.

It is a story of believing that one bright sweater given to someone else brings warmth, cheer and connection. In Jon Klassen’s illustrations, yarn connects one sweater wearer to the next—to people and dogs and even trees, whose trunks are now hugged by the heroine’s knitted yarn. Annabelle, in essence, knits together her community. An archduke tries to buy Annabelle’s limitless spool of yarn, but she won’t sell it. So he steals it. But her yarn comes back to her.

Marianne Challis

Last week, my voice teacher, Marianne Challis, died. It was sudden. She was 58. I worked with her for more than a decade. A truly great teacher, she taught us so much more than how to sing; she taught her students how to live, by her example. She was a gifted singer and performer, and she wanted that for her students, too. She believed in abundance. She shared not only her knowledge of the voice and the body and how they worked together to create sound, she also shared her wisdom around her life experiences. At her service, her dear friend and director, Scott Barnes, said something that we could take with us: “Right now, we are raw and in shock, but as the days go by, we’ll remember the joy she brought us.”

Extra Yarn came to mind. It’s about creating and giving something to someone else with no expectation of a reward, and how the world gets a little brighter because of it. It’s about taking an action when it seems like no action will make a difference. It’s about believing that we won’t run out of yarn if we make one more sweater. As we go into fall and the days grow a little shorter and a little colder, we can warm our world with that belief in abundance and a small act of kindness.

Got it!

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen is truly a book for all ages.

The author-artist’s background as an animator informs his pacing and the subtle adjustments in the expressions of his animal characters. As the story progresses, Klassen demonstrates what the slightest shift of the shape of the eyes or a change in posture can do to convey his character's mood. When the bear realizes, “I HAVE SEEN MY HAT,” he literally sees red. He appears on a tomato-colored page that infuses his fur. His anger emanates from the pages.

Rereading the book helps youngest readers to pick out the early clues as to the culprit that took the bear’s hat. Older readers will appreciate the minimalist approach Klassen brings to the pictures—a tuft of grass here, a rock there—that keep the focus on the bear’s internal life. If youngest children are not ready to imagine a worst-case scenario, Klassen allows them room to think the thief simply got away.

Here the spare scenery serves Klassen’s story well—children can see what they’re ready to see and “get" what they’re ready to get. The important thing, in the end, is Bear gets his hat back. Right?