Now that's a hat! by Heath McKenzie

Scholastic, 2019. ISBN: 9781760664022.
(Age: 4+) Highly recommended. Themes: Hats, Shopping, Choice, humour. Walking into a hat shop, the happy dog tells the uppity goat shop assistant that he is looking for an everyday sort of hat, something he can wear in all seasons. From there readers will laugh out loud as the assistant shows the customer an array of hats, each worse or more showy than the last, while each of the lines forms a rhyme which is sure to intrigue and delight as the reader predicts the possible word that will rhyme with the line before.
From tall hats and short hats, long hats and upside down hats, dotty hats and potty hats, to the more outrageous boot hats and loaf of bread hats, to hats that are too Roman or too Dutch, many many are simply too much.
The hapless customer becomes very frustrated with the assistant, now trying out everything he can jam on the customer's head, surrounded by the rejected hats on the floor around them.
Even passers by look through the window at the mayhem, as the two become more and more agitated with each other.
McKenzie's wonderful digital illustrations will have all readers watching each page with interest as they spy the different hats being tried and rejected, the looks on the faces becoming more and more disgruntled and the floor even more littered with a variety of hats.
The text and images play together across each page, no one page the same as the one before, as the two tussle trying to buy and sell a hat.
I can imagine many readers building their own hats after reading McKenzie's story and copying the hats shown in the book. Fun for all and the twist in the tale will bring tears of laughter and recognition to any reader, young and old.
Fran Knight