As a former English teacher and librarian, book talks were a staple in my classroom and library. I used to post my book talks and reviews on my educatorbarnes.com. Now, I am shifting them to my business page because we receive many book recommendation requests at Blazing Brilliance. For the book talks and book reviews I have on my personal website/portfolio, I will shift them to this page and categorize them for easy use.
A few days ago, I received an email alerting me that my boys’ library cards were about to expire. We stopped by our local library to renew their cards and to check out more books. My sons are fascinated with animals at the moment, which probably led my son, James, to pick up a book with a little fish on the cover.
Last night, I read This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen to my boys. They loved the story. Once I began to read it, they were shocked to learn the fish on the cover was a thief and not a remorseful thief either. My son, Jeremiah, really had a problem with this little fish. He stopped me as I was reading the book, pointed to the fish and exclaimed, “You are supposed to care.” This is a reference to Pierre by Maurice Sendak, a favorite book of both my boys.
As a parent and educator, I enjoyed reading this book with my boys. It gave us an opportunity to talk about making good choices and consequences of bad choices. Klassen leaves it up to the reader to determine what the consequences for the fish may have been.
After reading this book, I learned that This is Not My Hat is a follow up to Jon Klassen’s, I Want My Hat Back. I already made a hold request for it. Can’t wait to read it to my sons.
Check out my book trailer for This is Not My Hat.
Originally published on November 18, 2015 on educatorbarnes.com
Rating 5/5
| Recommended Grades | Preschool-2 |
| Recommended Ages | 4-8 |
| AR Book Level | 1.6 |
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