Mr Norton’s New Hat is an amusing picture book which celebrates kindness while introducing children to different animals and days of the week.
The Story: On Monday morning Horace Norton discovers a mouse in his hat so he takes it to work. On Tuesday there’s a birds nest in his bicycle basket so he takes the birds too. As the week continues more and more animals join him but at home on Saturday kind, patient and very overwhelmed Horace reaches breaking point. The animals leave and on Sunday Horace is lonely and sad. But a parcel on his doorstep on Monday morning leads to him feeling marvellous again 🙂
Horace’s kindness draws the animals to him and we love the ways that they join him – cats in his coat, a squirrel in his shoe. We also love the humour in the Saturday spreads before Horace loses his patience and shouts at the animals for disturbing him. But despite his actions we empathised with his loneliness on Sunday and really hoped for a happy ending.
Mr Norton’s New Hat has a fun, easy to read text full of amusing alliteration and rhyme – we particularly like the page where he goes into the bathroom and finds a mole in his mug, toads in the toilet and owls in his towels! The illustrations are bold and colourful and we love the way that Horace’s expression changes as the week goes by and he finds more animals.
So many fantastic learning opportunities can be stimulated by reading Mr Norton’s New Hat to a class. At a first reading children can be encouraged to guess which animals Horace will find next as well as consolidate their knowledge of the order of the days of the week. The story could also make a fun wall display or class book with children suggesting different animals and learning about alliteration.
Age Range: 3+
Author: Huw Lewis Jones / Illustrator: Corey Egbert
Thank you Little Tiger for sending a review copy of this fabulous story 🙂
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