Cat in the Hat? Hats Are Not For Cats! by Jacqueline K. Raymer

Who says?

A cute little cat finds a little red fez. It fits. But then...

There's a supercilious voice from on high....

Excuse me, cat. I see you're wearing a hat,
but hats...
... are not for cats.

He insists that headgear is only for that superior group -- dogs! He shows off his spiffy top hat, that chapeau of choice for superior canines, preferably, one assumes, of the shaggy persuasion!

The little grey kitty tries to change his mind, modeling a pink cloche, and a long, stripey knitted cap with a pom-pom.  The dog promptly points to his poster, the "CORRECT WEARING OF HATS," in which the cat in the hat is simply X-ed out.

Not fine hats or flapper,

not dashing and dapper!

Also to be banned are party toppers or artsy berets. Not frilly or silly, not stripy or dotty.

But this little kitty is inventive. She tries sombreros and tam o'shanters. Nordic ear warmers. Tropical sunhats. Every size and every style. But hats modeled by cats cannot persuade this picky, cranky canine. As far as he is concerned, they are ALL his hats!

But the grey cat campaigns for her rights and raises a cadre of cats who wear hats. They liberate all the haberdashery, and the little grey cat pounces and takes possession of the dog's very own top hat.

Cats rule, in Jacqueline K. Raymer's first picture book, Hats Are Not for Cats! (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Clarion, 2019), as the victorious cat pack models all the headgear, from boater to bowler, from sunbonnet to stetson. But turnabout-is-fair turns into it's better-to-share, in Rayner's jolly rhymes and ebullient illustrations, Dog happily regains his high hat as his new friends live it up in their best-liked lids. It's an easy reading, funny, rhyming story that will please preschoolers to primary graders, and a fun picture book to read on HAT DAY!

Share this new one with John Klassen's classic hat tales, I Want My Hat Back, We Found a Hat, and This Is Not My Hat. (See reviews here.)