While You Were Chasing a Hat (Harper Growing Tree)

From School Library Journal reS-Gr 3-A small girl is walking and then sailing in a small boat with her father on a windy day when her hat blows away. The entire text is one long sentence: "The wind/that whirled/your hat/away/furled a flag/filled a sail/raced a boat-/tolled a bell/atop a church/chased some crows-/all the while you were/chasing/a hat." Litzinger's simple illustrations show the child and her dad chasing the bright orange hat across a rolling, hilly landscape and seascape consistently colored split-pea green. Gentle, subdued colors provide a good backdrop to the hat, which can always be found on the well-composed spreads. The triumphant youngster clutching her hat fills the concluding endpapers. Preschoolers and early readers will enjoy the contemporary illustrations in this windy tale.