Hooray for Hat!

Lovely read with my 6 year old when she was having a little issue with friends at school and competing for one best friend. Good lesson about kindness within the text

Very boring story - didn't interest any of the children I read it to. Def not one to pass down the generations. If you are looking for an incredible book for kids try something​ like: "The Seven Silly Eaters" by Mary Ann Hoberman and illustrations by Marla Frazee

Gorgeous book with subtle message about sharing and friendship.

Super cute story with lovely pictures. A great follow up activity you could do with the kids is creating your own hats and sharing the happiness!

Helping someone is a great way to make them feel good and what better way to do this than providing a novelty hat? I can think of a few things myself, but for Elephant, Zebra, Turtle and the rest of their pals; hat-giving is the joy de jour.For a children’s book to work, I am not too fussed about it working on a level that will appeal to the adult reading the book; this is not meant for them. Instead, the book should be aimed squarely at the child and if the adult also likes it too, that is a bonus. ‘Hooray for Hat!’, written and illustrated by Brian Won, is a book that works best for the kids, whilst the adult remains a little confused to its popularity.Let’s get the biggest issue out of the way first; Hooray for Hat. There is more than one hat throughout the story, should it not be Hooray for Hats? The various animals on show do not appear to be bothered and I can tell you that a toddler is not really fussed either as they are too involved with the adventure that is happening and the great illustrations.The story is very simple; a repeat exercise of going to a different animal and cheering them up with a hat. This is a little basic, but proved very popular with a younger toddler just starting out in the reading game. What it can mean is that the book is very repetitive for an adult; like the ‘That’s Not My’ range of books. There is a nice twist at the end of the book that plays on the story so far, as well as giving a good lesson to children about being unselfish and helping one another.What ‘Hooray’ lacks in sophistication story wise, it makes up for through the appealing images. There is a great sense of colour and scale in Won’s drawings and the fact that the book flips is also good fun. The animals look great and are characterful; you can almost see what they are thinking on each page. The minimalist look means that the creatures stand out, but once again this does make repeat reading a little more difficult as there are no background elements to point out and mix things up with.Overall, ‘Hooray’ is a simple story told well and in a beautiful manner. It has a good message, but the lack of sophistication in the narrative (even for a children’s book) means that it may only appeal to a toddler for a short time before they look to move onto something slightly more challenging. Original review on bookbag.co.uk

A really good book, a lovely repeating pattern with scope for dramatic role play - a good book for children aged 2-5.