Nora is a hat maker. I should at this point reveal my late mother's name was Nora and her sister really was a milliner (hat maker). In this story, Nora makes hats for everyone - dogs, foxes, and even giraffes. One day she receives an interesting letter. Mr Mountain has seen her hats and he wants Nora to make a hat as a protection from the winter snow.
Nora enlists the help of her friends and she makes a hat. It is a giant knitted hat. It fits really well but then it begins to rain. The wool shrinks and soon the hat is way too small.
"But Nora didn't give up."
For her next attempt at hat making for the mountain she gathers hundreds of beautiful green leaves and she weaves them into a fresh green hat. Unfortunately this creation looks so delicious, greedy animals start to eat it before Nora even gets the chance to deliver this wonderful hat.
Back to the problem. Wool shrinks and green leaves are eaten by the animals. What about wood? Oh no wood can burn. It's another hat disaster. Sadly this time Nora does give up but her wonderful friends do not. The perfect hat can be made from (spoiler alert) - clouds! Watching all of her forest friends collecting the clouds is a truly special scene.
This will be an excellent book to use with your youngest classes exploring topics and themes such as problem solving, creativity, kindness, team work and generosity. This is also a book to share sitting beside a young reading companion because there are so many tiny details to explore in the illustrations.
Here is a companion read:
Soojin Kwak won the Silent Book Prize at the Bologna book fair in 2019 for her book Starbuilders (Costruttori di Stelle). This is a silent or wordless book so it does not really need translating from Italian but as far as I can discover this book is not available here in Australia.
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