CAT'S NEW HAT

Cat keeps losing their hat to the whooshing wind.

Purcell’s pink-shorts–wearing Cat from Cat Goes Fast (2020) is back with a hat to match. When the wind picks up the hat and blows it away, Cat skateboards past animals, rocks, and trees in pursuit. The story demonstrates cause and effect, showing what happens when the goose flies away with the hat and the wind blows it. In addition, Cat and friends use their problem-solving and teamwork skills to keep the hat on Cat’s head. Purcell includes opportunities for readers to participate, inviting them to spot the missing hat, for example, and to predict what might happen next. The rhyming text works well, set in simply structured sentences. Cat’s little bird friend and the other animals talk in speech bubbles, offering sweet little asides that are not integral to the plot. The illustrations are simple and clean, with solid backgrounds of blue skies and green grass. Belying the pictures’ charming simplicity, the book moves: Three simple lines bent in various ways effectively convey the blowing wind, and because there is always something just about to happen with the turn of the page, the pacing keeps up. Cat is never referred to with gendered pronouns and generally appears androgynous.

Cat delights in this toddler page-turner.