I love the bright, colorful illustrations and the use of white space to make the art eye-grabbing.

I love the repetitious lines “GO AWAY! I’M GRUMPY!” and “HOORAY FOR HAT!” that help to provide a strong story structure.I love that sheer joy and innocence in the characters, that represents young kids so well.

I love the simplicity of the story, that can be summarized with three keywords, grumpy – hat – friends.

I love, love, love this book! It is perfect for story time and preschools, but will certainly bring a smile to anyone that reads it. Here is a link to my past blog post to get some ideas.

Have kids do a Random Act of Kindness.

This tale is laid out well for Reader’s Theater.

Have a Hat Parade! Download and print this colorful activity kit with hats from the book!.

An irresistible celebration of friendship, sharing, and fabulous hats. Off they march to show Turtle! The parade continues as every animal brightens the day of a grumpy friend. (June) Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Elephant wakes up grumpy-until ding, dong! What’s in the surprise box at the front door? A hat! HOORAY FOR HAT! Elephant marches off to show Zebra, but Zebra is having a grumpy day, too-until Elephant shares his new hat and cheers up his friend. What can we do?' Readers will know the answer to this one. 'But I can't cheer while our friend Giraffe is not feeling well. 'I love this hat,' Lion says when they arrive at his cave. Owl's hat is a sort of graduation cap meets awning affair, while Elephant's has both a cuckoo and a handy cupholder. Won's retro-style artwork uses muted hues and gives forms volume with watercolor-style shading. Zebra and the animals that follow are all grumpy, each gets a hat, and the cheer spreads.

But the delivery is a box full of hats, and Elephant cheers right up after putting them on in a tall stack: 'I'll show Zebra!' His good deed has the knock-on effect of a line of dominoes. 'When Elephant woke up, he was very grumpy,' Won starts, drawing the elephant with dark frowning eyebrows and scribbly black lines above his head. In this debut, Won explores the way a simple gift and a little attention from friends can have nearly magical healing properties. By Grade + Interest - K to 1st By Grade + Interest - 2nd to 3rd By Grade + Interest - 4th to 5th

Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won