Timely Restyling: Unraveled by Leanne Hatch

COLE'S BABY BLANKET HAD BEEN LOVINGLY MADE BY MAMA WHILE SHE DREAMED OF HIS ARRIVAL.

And right away Cole loves his soft knitted blankie. It snuggles him when he is a tiny newborn, and makes him giggle when his mom uses it to play peek-a-boo with him.

When he can sit up, it makes a soft play-place for him and his toys on the floor. When he is older, it is a tent for him and his cat to hide out under kitchen chairs. And when he is bigger, it make a perfect superhero cape. But then, one day... Cole notices something sad. His beloved blankie is growing smaller.

IT WAS COMING UNRAVELED.

Soon it is just a wad of snarled-up yarn.

HE TRIED TO USE IT IN ALL THE SAME WAYS.

But it is no good for keeping him warm at night or making a hide-out tent, a superhero cape, or anything. Even his cat, who might be suspected for the unraveling, seems sad. At last Cole has to admit the truth.

IT WAS TIME TO LET GO.

But Mom knows what to do with yarn, and while Cole sleeps, she starts knitting once more.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and in that spirit, Cole soon has a a handsome handknit new sweater, soft and warm, in Leanne Hatch's Unraveled (Holiday House, 2021).

Hatch's heartwarming story of loss and love and life is made even more kid-pleasing by her charming illustrations, including that big-eyed cat with the knowing expressions on his whiskered face. This first book for author-illustrator Hatch is a wise lesson on loving and letting go and making something out of nothing!

Pass It On! The Pink Hat by Andrew Joyner

First, there wasn't a hat.

Then, there was...a pink hat.

Knitting by her window overlooking a busy street, a woman knits and knits until her knitting turns into a cozy pink hat, which she promptly stretches out to use as a foot warmer. But soon the woman drops it into her knitting basket and goes off to make herself a cup of tea.

But the hat doesn't stay there long. Her cat pounces on it, and bats it around... until he pushes it over the windowsill.

The wind catches the hat and blows it into the branches of a tree, where it catches the eye of some kids. One girl climbs the tree, but it is hard to reach the hat.... until the hat shakes loose and falls right onto a baby in a passing stroller, where his mother tucks it snugly around him and moves on.

That is, until... the baby gives a wiggle and a dog swipes it and makes a run for it. But when the dog gets bored and drops it, a girl passing by with a violin case rescues it.

The girl washed the hat ... and dried the hat.

She wore it again, and again, and again.

But that's not the end of the hat's adventures. It becomes a boxing glove, a mask for whomever is IT in hide-and-seek, and even a paintbrush sack... until....

She wore her pink hat,

And everyone else wore one, too!

The girl and dog join many women and some boys and men wearing pink hats in a crowd with signs that say GIRL POWER and WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS, while the woman and her cat watch the parade go by from her window. It's not just a hat. It's a movement!

Andrew Joyner's The Pink Hat (Schwartz and Wade, 2017)l highlights the hat, the only bit of color in his charming black and white  illustrations with a cityscape filled with all sorts of people and pets as they merge into a multitude of pink knitted hats in the Women's March of 2017. The hat, of course, is both a cozy cap with many possibilities and a metaphor for the march of January 21, 2017, just right for youngsters who will enjoy the adventures of the traveling hat along the way to its big day. This one is just right for International Women's Day in March. Share this one with Kobi Yamada's similarly themed What Do You Do With an Idea?

Yarn Yarn: Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett

ON A COLD AFTERNOON, IN A COLD LITTLE TOWN, WHERE EVERYWHERE YOU LOOKED WAS EITHER THE WHITE OF SNOW OR THE BLACK OF SOOT FROM CHIMNEYS, ANNABELLE FOUND A BOX FILLED WITH YARN OF EVERY COLOR.

There seems nothing else to do with her surprising find but knit, so Annabelle knits and purls herself a multicolored sweater. Pleased with her product, she also knits one for her dog Max.

BUT THERE WAS STILL MORE YARN.

In a world where everything is black or white, Annabelle and Max are sure to be noticed.

"YOU TWO LOOK RIDICULOUS," NATE LAUGHED.

Annabelle doesn't get mad, but she does get even, knitting up Nate (and his glowering dog) two natty sweaters.

At school the kids in her class can't stop whispering and twisting around to stare at her sweater. Her teacher Mr. Norman berates her for the distraction, so Annabelle obliges by knitting a woolly sweater for everyone, even her sheepish teacher.

AND ANNABELLE STILL HAD EXTRA YARN.

As Annabelle keeps on knitting, dressing the drab town's inhabitants and habitations with colorful coverings, the fame of her inexhaustible yarn box spreads afar, to the castle of an archduke, who sails to her shores to offer a millions for her miraculous yarn box. When Annabelle refuses to sell, the archduke has her mysterious box stolen in the dark of the night, sailing away with his prize.

But back in his seaside redoubt, the archduke opens the charmed box to find nothing but a pair of  useless knitting needles. Foiled, he curses Annabelle with perpetual unhappiness and hurls the useless box from his tower window into the sea.

But it seems the magic box of yarn knows the way back to its true mistress, in Mac Barnett's and Jon Klassen's Extra Yarn (Balzer & Bray, 2012), a modern fairy tale with the theme that the power of art can be bestowed but never bought. Chosen as a 2013 Caldecott Honor Book for Jon Klassen's classically restrained illustrations which tell the tale with great charm, this yarn about yarn shows again why he took the Caldecott Medal this year for his wonderfully witty and ironically insightful This Is Not My Hat (see my review here). Mac Barnett is no slouch as an author either, and the two of them together can spin quite a yarn--without dropping a stitch.