If You Have A Hat: A Silly Rhyming Picture Book for Kids

Cute list story, great illustrations but what children are likely to love most are the jokes and quizzes found at the end of the book with more entertaining illustrations.

Original review published at Ian Wood's Novellum.If You Have a Hat sounds like a Lyle Lovett song title, but it's really a young children's book of fun nonsense. I like children's books to try and offer some educational content if possible, but that doesn't mean there can't be room in your collection for those which are purely crazy, of course. Besides, what is there to do with a smile if you don't put it on your face? It's wasted! Now that's educational!From the author who brought you Spot the Duck and Don't Juggle Bees neither of which I've read, but both of which seem eminently sensible titles, comes this lengthy (for a children's book) collection of colorful drawings and ridiculous rhymes. It begins, "If you have a hat, put it on your head. If you have a bedbug, tuck him up in bed." I'm frankly not entirely convinced of the wisdom of that latter idea, but definitely hats are in order if you live under a sweltering sun. It would have been nice if the bed bug had been gender neutral, as indeed their choice of victim is, but it's a minor issue in a full book of fun - minor as long as you're aware it's an issue.You can't argue with the good advice to help seeds grow into flowers, and to build towers with bricks. Who doesn't want to build a tower when faced with a pile of Lego bricks? I mean, come on, they're asking for it! We get boats and Band-Aids, cameras and chickadees (okay so maybe it wasn't. Leave my alliteration alone!), music and hippos. This author seems very fond of hippos, by and large. Especially large. But at least they're clean hippos.No one can argue that music requires dancing. Even if you're laying in bed listening to this story you can dance with your fingertips or try to dance your tongue on the end of your nose, right? But not on someone else's nose. That's stretching things too far! Apple pie and clouds in the sky, airplanes and fun and games and you have yourself a great romp for kids. I enjoyed this immensely, and I recommend it.

"If you have a Hat" is a cure silly rhyming book for the little ones. The rhymes are good and sure to make young children giggle. What would you do if you have a pile of bricks? The author recommends to "Build yourself a tower." What if you have a hippo? The story says "Put him in the bath." The hippo picture is one of my favorites. I feel the big colorful illustrations will keep children engaged. There are all sorts of games and riddles at the back of the book to help children test their memories and practice solving puzzles. I love books that help improve children's skills in many areas, like this one does. I felt the story was somewhat different than I expected because the title made me think of different uses for hats. Still, I recommend this funny and entertaining book.Review by children's author Deanie Humphrys-Dunne

The illustrations in If You Have a Hat are fun for young children. The rhyme is good and the beat works. All of the examples of what do do with things a young child would have is age appropriate except one and that is the airplane. Unless the child lives in France, a preschool child does not have the experience to understand that France is a country far away. The concept of distance is restricted to the area where the child lives and they have nothing to relate to traveling so far to a foreign country. The four-year-olds in my class are still dealing with understanding that they live in a state in a country with fifty states when they are just learning to count to ten. Maps are just lines on a drawing so that is not a way to teach a preschool age child about distances and other far away places. I don't think this makes the book inappropriate for preschool age children but the adults reading it should be ready to answer questions, if they come up from this one page. The rest of the book is excellent to talk about what we use things for and to expand vocabulary and have fun reading.

I enjoyed reading this book! I also enjoyed the extras such as the riddles and the memory tests at the end.

Do you like to ask questions?The author, Gerald Hawksley, has written a fun book for young children. I remember when my two year olds would ask questions, and I would try to answer the best I could. In this book ,many questions are asked, and the questions are all answered. However, these answers are super. All the questions and answers are done in rhyme. What a fun time for all.Parents/teachers will enjoy reading this book to their children. The questions and answers are so much fun, the children may laugh and squeal, as will their adults. Some of the answers are so silly, like:'If you have a bed bug. You put him in a bed'. Everyone knows you don't want bedbugs in your bed. The illustrations are bright, vivid and beautiful, and they depict each question and answer. A fun book for the entire family.Recommended. prisrob 02-22-16

My daughter (with ASD) and I enjoyed this book immensely. She was so into reading the rhyming words. The bonus jokes and Happy Animals book at the end were also a treat.Thank you to the generous author!

After being at home for most of kindergarten this book was perfect. It was easy, since she could sound out words and the matching picture made it doable. Such a good addition to our reading. Also loved the pages of things to do. I'd give it a five star plus rating. Thanks so much.

‘A silly rhyming picture book’img_1855I’m always on the lookout for good children’s books to add to my Kindle library. Some books don’t translate well to Kindle and that, in my experience, goes particularly for children’s books, but this one works perfectly. The simple, clearly defined illustrations are well suited to ebook format and even though I read it on my Kindle Paperwhite, therefore no colour, it still worked well ( and my little grandson agreed!)The little rhymes are indeed very silly.‘If you have a hat, put it on your headif you have a bed bug tuck him up in bed’Just the sort of funny rhymes very young children love. A Real Delight to share with little ones.

A fun lively book full of rhymes and colourful pictures. My 6 year old gave it a big thumbs up. Easy for little ones to read and enjoyable cartoon pictures for them to look at if you read to them. There's even some fun jokes and puzzles at the end.

This book is lovely, I bought it when my son turned 2 & he loved it and very soon knew the book by heart. He is now 4 and can read it through properly. It's a lovely little rhyming book that makes everyone smile when he reads it. I'd definitely recommend to anyone with little ones who are learning to read or enjoy books

Great little book. Very funny, like all Gerald Hawksley books. Live the jokes and the pop quizzes at the end.

This book is brilliant as the kids get excited anticipating what is going to happen to each item and them have been reading along as I go. Only disappointment on Kindle is that the pictures don't scale up on tablet so only fill a quarter of the screen. But the kids still love it so who cares!