![]() ![]() If teachers used this title as an introduction to feminism or as a shout-out to last year's march, they would need to provide a bit of background knowledge to help readers or listeners understand its significance. ![]() The digital illustrations are mostly black, white, and gray except for that hard-to-ignore pink hat. I couldn't decide if the hat was possibly originally intended for her in the first place since there is a photograph of a girl who looks a lot like her on the table of the knitting woman. She wears it everywhere, and even joins the crowds we are marching to raise awareness of women's issues and women's rights. Each page in the book is devoted to the places the hat lands and the individuals through which it moves-the knitter, a cat, some children, a baby, a dog, and finally, a young girl. ![]() As it is, it seems to be more a story about a pink hat that is knitted by a middle age woman and finds its way into the hands of a young girl. Yes, there is a short note on the copyright page, but the book might have had more impact with a couple of pages dedicated to women's rights. I love the idea of a picture book celebrating the Women's March in 2017, but I would have liked a bit more background to why the women were marching. Surely, if the march was such a significant moment in history, it deserved better than being a side-note in what felt like another story altogether? Perhaps something that offered snippets about different marchers, in different parts of the world? In any case, while I do believe the intention here was good, and while I did find the artwork appealing, this ended up feeling like nothing so much as a sweet tale about the journey of a hat, with a little side dish of politics piggybacking along at the end. I would have loved a picture-book that highlighted some of the underlying causes of the march, and the ideas the marchers were trying to promote. As Joyner notes in his brief afterword, this multinational day of protest was one of the largest political demonstrations in human history. Passing along through the hands of a variety of owners and users, whether human or animal, the hat eventually ends up in the possession of a little girl who, happening to wear it out the door one day, finds herself in an immense crowd of marchers also wearing pink hats.Īlthough I found The Pink Hat quite engaging, both as an entertaining story in its own right, and as an adorably-illustrated picture-book, somehow, as a response to the Women's March of this past year, it felt rather lacking. Knit into existence by a little old lady, the hat's journey begins when it is grabbed by a cat. Australian author/artist Andrew Joyner follows the journey of a pink hat in this picture-book tribute to the Women's March of 2017. ![]()
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