The text type, New Century Schoolbook, intentionally evokes the visually comfy, eminently readable design of 1960s children’s primers. Foliage is suggested with a few ink strokes (though it’s quite bashed-up after rabbit goes missing). Klassen’s ink-and-digital creatures, similarly almond-eyed and mouth-less, appear stiff and minimalist against creamy white space. There’s the subsequent dash and confrontation, followed by bear in hat and rabbit-well, nowhere to be seen. Ten pages on, as the bear describes his hat for a solicitous deer, realization hits: “I HAVE SEEN MY HAT.” The accompanying illustration shows the indignant bear suffused in the page’s angry red. While everyone denies seeing it, a rabbit (sporting, readers will note, a pointy red chapeau) protests a bit too indignantly. Klassen’s coy effort combines spare illustration, simple, repetitive text and a “payback’s a bear” plot.Ī somber, sepia-toned bear longs for his missing hat and questions a series of forest animals about its whereabouts.
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