SPOILER ALERT! I will try my best not to spoil ‘I Want My Hat Back’ by Jon Klassen but I can’t promise that important plot details will not be exposed. It’s got some twists and turns that you might want to avoid knowing before you read it. If you want to go and read it and then come back then go for it.

If you’re happy to do a deep dive into ‘I Want My Hat Back’ then lets do this.

I did some research to try to find out if this was based on true events. I googled ‘Bear’ ‘Hat’ and ‘Stolen’ and while I could find no examples of a bear having his hat stolen, or ever having a hat, or a bear asking other animals where his hat had gone, I did find a genuine moral and ethical study of the book which I was not expecting to find.

If you would prefere a more serious disection of the book and it’s moral questions then by all means hit that link and stop reading this.

I have already started telling Ben that bears can’t be trusted. Even if they’re wearing a stylish mackintosh or a collar and tie combo that leaves little to the imagination. Bears are killers. They will eat you. I’ve seen Grizzly Man. And, major spoiler, I’ve finished this book! I know what happens!

Also, if you have rabbits in your house or your kid loves rabbits, you might need to prepare them because there is a rabbit in this book that is a real piece of work who allegedly does some things and then possibly meets a gruesome fate. Be warned.

So the first question you have to ask yourself when reading this book is where did the bear get his hat? It’s a little red, pointy peakless hat, a little bit like a dunce’s cap. A dunces cap only red. Did someone come upon this bear and think ‘that dope deserves a dunce’s cap’? I mean, he did lose the thing and then has a spectacularly hard time trying to find it again even though he, at one point, stares straight at it. Oh that was a spoiler as well. Sorry.

Did the bear stumble upon it and decide he was keeping it? How did he come to own the hat or at the very least, if not in a legal sense, how did he come to believe he had ownership of the hat. These are important questions to ask as I believe it rounds out the bear character.

So the Bear Dunce has somehow managed to get his hands on a dunce cap and then manages to lose it. Has it been stolen? Has it been misplaced? That’s an important question in the bigger picture here because, I assume, ‘I Want My Hat Back: Part Two’ is the court case that will inevitably follow on from the bears actions.

The first animal that our cuddly dopey dangerous bear encounters is a fox. And what do we all know about foxes? That’s right, completetly trustworthy and not sly in the slightest. At least that’s what our bear thinks. He asks the fox have they seen the hat. The fox says no and the bear doesn’t even question it. Just accepts the answer and walks off. It works out in the end but that for me was a serious lack of judgement on the bear’s part.

He asks a frog or a toad or something next and they haven’t seen the hat anywhere. Fine. Good judgement here from the bear, move on.

Ok. I really don’t want to spoil anything here but the next animal that the bear meets is a rabbit. The rabbit has on his head a red hat. The bear asks if the rabbit has seen his hat anywhere. At which point the rabbit panics and starts to babble and sweat profusesly (I assume) and act in the most guilty way imaginable.

So either the bear didn’t recognise the hat on the rabbit or didn’t look and just listened to the answer the rabbit gave. Either way, shocking lack of awareness from the bear. The hat and the hat thief are right in front of you! It makes you wonder just how important the hat actually is or maybe, and I’m spitballing here, has this bear been drinking and this is all just the adventures of a drunken bear? That would explain some of the decision making.

I don’t want to spoil the entire book but needless to say, the rabbit meets what can be interpreted as a most gruesome and deserved demise. Or if you are a rabbit sympathiser, you may see the final act as a wonton act of destruction which needs to be called out as bear on rabbit crime which doesn’t get anywhere near enough coverage in mainstream media.

Ben enjoyed the book. He sat with me and listened as I told the story and induldged all my tangents. I’ve told him that the lesson to take from this book is never steal a hat from a bear, in fact, try not to interact with bears at all, but if you do pinch his cap and he catches you and somehow you get away with it? Leave town, leave the country, because eventually that bear will sober up and realise that you stole his property and show you exactly why, even well dressed bears are terrifying.