A Holiday for Hats... and Fashion!

 Am I alone in recalling all the words to this old song... 

IN YOUR EASTER BONNET, 

WITH ALL THER FRILLS UPON IT, 

YOU'LL BE THE GRANDEST LADY

AT THE EASTER PARADE...

Easter parade? What's that all about? Click to see, if it sounds bewildering to you!

CUENTO de LUZ, 2016
Translation from original Spanish

This not-new fiction picture book felt like an ideal one to review on Easter Sunday. THE MAGIC HAT SHOP is written and illustrated by Sonja Wimmer. The cover suggests the MAGIC in its magical realism. Opening end papers focus on the REAL in this genre. Designs for various head coverings for men and women, rendered in graphics, sketches, and advertising styles, parade neatly across those opening pages. These appear to be the very fashionable offerings of a hat shop, nothing magic about them.

Since this is an author/illustrator creation, I need to emphasize the illustrations first. They, too, extend vividly recognizable objects and characters with exaggerated features or details. The small village seems like many other in picture books, and yet the landscape for this town, the nearby hillsides,  train tracks, and even the observant reader and cat are positioned on domes and rims of hats. Colors are sherbet-toned, both luminous and shadowed, with delicate features  and fingers in contrast with billowing bodies. It takes one look to realize that here we are going to confront lively fun and fantasy alongside seriously intense reality. 

And we are not wrong.

A rolling hat shop sets the stage for change, with a sort of "seer" sales person who can provide exactly the hat needed to bring out the best in the citizens. To avoid a spoiler, I'll just say that another sudden change disrupts the transformed townspeople, who are faced with resuming their former scowling approach to life. The closing end papers take just enough liberty with reality and hats to remind readers that both realism and intentional imagining can work together to generate everyday magic. Please read it, then don your own best-choice hat, figurative or real, and take yourselves out into the world. On Easter and every day.

PHAIDON BOOKS, 2025

Easter (and Spring!) also set the stage for fashionistas among us. That's why GET DRESSED! A HISTORICAL GUESSING GASME FOR FASHION LOVERS deserves our attention. It is nonfiction, utterly real, and undoubtedly new! In this case the magic is in the appeal of century-spanning spreads, challenging guessing games, and appealing nuggets of information about cultures, climates, changes, and communities across the globe. Written by KATY CANALES and illustrated  by ERIN VANESSA, this book is as beautiful as its subjects.

The quality of the physical book holds even more appeal, oversized and sturdy. It allows casual readers to share it on laps, while intense fashion fans can sprawl on elbows to examine details and even trace or copy or modify aspects of clothing (including hats!) from across time and space. 

Young fashion fans among my family and friends love to examine latest styles, to experiment, to express themselves in unique ways. But this picture book also challenges them to see patterns of purpose and progress, to consider production and materials (and waste), and imagine ways in which designs of the future can be both creative and constructive. Adults will find as much to discover in this as younger readers will, and it could easily find return readers in homes, classrooms, and libraries.

Enjoy your Sunday pursuits in whatever clothing and/or hats that you choose. Then begin your week with a peek at these two titles. And let me know what you think in the comments!

Featuring Fabulous NonFiction Titles from PHAIDON

Publishers sometimes offer an early view of new titles. When a publisher has produced reliably terrific titles in the past, my hopes are high. That's the case with four new offerings from PHAIDON PRESS (and Phaidon Kids) whose books I've reviewed HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. In each case the subject matter of those books was an iconic visual artist, from BANKSY to  dot-maestra Yayoi Kusama and more. Theirs are not the only picture books I've featured whose subjects are artists or art itself. But they especially impressed me with the ways in which they produced kid-friendly narrative, images, format, and quality that brought "high art" and artists' lives into the hands and hearts of the very young.

The list of new titles, though, is not about art and artists. Rather, they reflect a group of books focused on various aspects of our observable world. I explored those files eagerly and found them to be well-produced, with contents offering significant kid-appeal. I provide only a brief look at each below, but each merits your close examination. All provide the high quality production values of format, paper finish, vibrant colors and crisp images I've come to expect, with well-organized and appealing content organization. Each though, is quite distinct from the others.

PHAIDON PRESS, 2025

Up first is Superpowered Plants:Meet the Smartest, Strongest, and Sneakiest Plants is written by Soledad Romero Mariño and illustrated by Sonia Pulido. The introduction presents the premise that plant adaptations have made many "super" in their capacity to not only survive but thrive in wide-ranging conditions. Such an academic concept comes to life through vivid illustrations and page design throughout, which is better shown than explained (below). The choice of plants ranges around the world, and the traits/adaptaions featured rarely overlap, making each plant a new adventure to explore. Young readers (and their adults) will recognize many of these and become acquainted with some entirely new plant varieties. I expect many audiences may be eager for a trip to a local botanical gardens after adding this book, and will also be drawn to examine plants right outside their doors with new insights and attention. It's a bright and appealing offering.

Interior images, SUPER PLANTS, PHAIDON

Interior images, SUPER PLANTS, PHAIDON

 

From Baobab trees to prickly pairs to Titan Arum (the corpse plant) and more, you can see in the samples pages pictured above that key elements are 

highlig

PHAIDON PRESS, 2025

hted not only in text but with effective graphic design. The overall format includes a full text introduction, a colorful table of contents, and end pages that array the icon-emoji style circle images that occur throughout each spread and featured plant. Overall, kids will have fun and learn loads about individual plants, while gaining understanding of the processes of adaptation.

Next up is NATURE'S TINY CHAMPIONS: The Big Book of Little Creatures Doing Mighty Things, written by Ben Lerwill, illustrated by Nic Jones. Ranging from the familiar (honeybees and dung beetles) to eye-opening surprises (chocolate midge and water bear), each double spread is a well-designed presentation of visually informative and intriguing images with narrative and spot text, labels, and inserts that provide further information to be accessed at first reading or dipped into on re-reads of investigations later.

Again, the quality of design and content offers something for any age, but kids will pore over and tell others about their discoveries.

Interior spreads, NATURE'S TINY CREATURES, PHAIDON 2025

PHAIDON PRESS, 2025

A third upcoming title is about adaptations of another of Earth's natural inhabitants, humans! GET DRESSED! A historical Guessing Game For Fashion Lovers is written by Katy Canales and illustrated by Erin Vanessa. In this title each set of  spreads reveals a time period and locale in society (notably including global cultures). As in the books above, m the information is transmitted through a rich blend and balance of text (naraative, spot, and captioned) with illustrations (full scenes, insets, and icons/symbols). 

The patterns of each culture allow readers to extend individual elements of society and its roles across time and geography, revealing the universality of humanity. 

Interior Images, GET DRESSED! PHAIDON

None of these new titles is locked into a single structure or format, but al have been designed to suit the material and capture the audience effectively. These are not simple encyclopedic displays, but tell big-picture stories about how patterns of nature (including human nature) can be inferred and sometimes directly observed by those who take the time to slow down, notice, compare, and consider closely. I hope you'll do the same with these exciting new nonfiction picture books.