Call of the Wild

 

the animal cast of  I Want My Hat Back, written and illustrated by Jon Klassen


So there's this particular thing that happens in children's books.
Like... all of them.
Okay, most of them.
Or at least the ones involving anthropomorphized animals.

We'll just refer to it as the 'inter-species friendship' phenomenon. This is par for the course in books for the very young. You've got your Frog and Toad, your Amos and Boris, your City Dog, Country Frog, your Sick Day for Amos McGee, and so on. Most pairings are harmless, if unlikely. Since we are discussing animals that talk and do human-type stuff, interaction between a mouse and a whale isn't going to seem that weird. 

But there are also a lot of picture books that depict relationships between animals who, in the natural world, would not be friends. If you catch my drift. In Bear Snores On and Little Owl Lost you've got bears and owls eating cookies with mice and squirrels, instead of, you know, each other. Stuart Little lives with a nasty cat. These sorts of books can be about overcoming differences, helping others, or even imagined fear, but they're funny too. Animals that use big words and wear clothes and sleep in beds are hilarious. If they weren't, Animals Talking in All Caps would not exist. And that is not a world I want to live in.

There are very few picture books about animals that manage to be both anthropomorphized and realistic at the same time. Fox in the Dark comes close, offering kids a glimpse of actual peril... but the fox turns out to be a baby--nothing to be scared of after all. Even the classic, Big Hungry Bear, ends safely: the mouse gobbles up his red, ripe strawberry before the hungry bear arrives on the scene. Emily Gravett's books are as realistic as they are gorgeous, but tend to focus on one species at a time.

Before last week, if you had asked me to name a single talking-animal book that obeyed the laws of nature, I would have been stumped. Enter I Want My Hat Back, written and illustrated by Jon Klassen. A bear has lost his hat, and wanders about the forest asking various animals if they have seen it. (They haven't.) He is despondent until it occurs to him that he HAS seen his hat... on some body's head. Later, we see Bear, happily reunited with his hat, sitting on a mess of broken branches. A squirrel approaches Bear, looking for his friend, Rabbit. It is at this point that the reader gets a mighty kick in the pants, because we suddenly realize what happened to the hat-thief Rabbit. REALISM.

You will feel guilty for laughing. Because this book is as funny as it is disturbing. Show it to an adult or an older child (maybe 1st or 2nd grade) and there will be giggling. But show this book to a group of toddlers or preschoolers? There will be confusion or even tears. And it's a pity, because I Want My Hat Back just begs to be read aloud. The rhythm is perfect and the dialogue is a storyteller's dream. The illustrations are simultaneously crisp but muted, full of unusual, exaggerated shapes. People have called the animals, 'expressive,' but look closely and you'll realize that they each have only one facial expression. Not unlike traditional marionettes, Klassen manages to take Bear from sadness, to frustration, elation, to sheepishness, all with a single expression. Posture and color supply the context. It's genius.

It's true that children, especially little ones, have a tendency toward the macabre. But they're morbid in a totally un-selfconcious way, approaching pretty much everything with equal curiosity and enthusiasm. I think that the idea of dark comedy is something that is learned, rather than innate. The humor requires a kind of social context, a knowledge of what is and isn't off-limits in conversation. Children who still need guidance in brushing their own teeth? Not gonna understand the social context. So who is this book for, exactly? I suspect it would be the perfect book for parents looking for something a little off the beaten path. Illustration lovers. Edward Gorey fans. There are plenty of older kids out there who like a dose of truth in their fiction. Or maybe it's just for people who like to see animals in hats. Yeah. It's totally that.

So what do you guys think? You are the real experts here. Would you read this for story-time? Do you like the idea of a little more realism in your talking-animal stories? Do you (or your kids) already have a favorite inter-species friendship book? (I am partial to Amos and Boris myself.) I just might have to compile a list.