The Hat

by Brett, Jan

• ISBN13: 9780399234613
• ISBN10: 0399234616
• Edition: Board
• Format: Board Book
• Copyright: 1999-10-04
• Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Summary

The Publishers Weekly#1 bestseller, Jan Brett's heartwarming story of Hedgie the hedgehog's misadventures has become a family favorite. Like its companion The Mitten, The Hatis now available as a wonderful board book to share with young children. "Brett's signature art introduces animal characters as endearing and expressive as those who congregated in her earlier book's expandable white mitten." (Publishers Weekly) "A clever and appealing picture book. . . . The pictures, story, and subject matter make this a natural for sharing aloud." (School Library Journal)

Author Biography

With over thirty four million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

As a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."

As a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. "It was overwhelming to see the room-size landscapes and towering stone sculptures, and then moments later to refocus on delicately embroidered kimonos and ancient porcelain," she says. "I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting."

Travel is also a constant inspiration. Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books."