A wild picture book starring a world-renowned cat, his trainer, a cast of quirky characters from award-winning creators Daniel Pinkwater and Aaron Renier Thermal Herman 6-7/8 is the top Kat Hat in Matt Katz’s company. A trained cat who is able to form himself into specialty hats, Thermal Herman is world-renowned for his warmth and agility. When a friend wanders off with a brain freeze and finds themself in peril, Thermal Herman must rush in to save the day in this zany and cleverly illustrated picture book, sure to make young readers giggle with every page.

Two children sitting at home on a rainy day are visited by the cat who shows them some tricks and games.

Jazz cats in fedoras, feisty cats in Viking horns, gourmand cats in chef’s hats, Burmese cats in bonnets, and the always popular Siamese in a sombrero—no one rocks a hat quite like a cat. Featuring more than forty two-page spreads consisting of color photos alongside hilarious captions and informative text, Cats in Hats is a fun, joyful compendium of some exquisite combinations of felines and head wear. They say cats have nine lives, but no one’s ever told us how many hats they have...

Two children sitting at home on a rainy day meet the cat in the hat who shows them some tricks and games.

From the author of Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell comes a sweet, silly, and sassy picture book about a cat who has a hat that seems magical—but the powers of the hat aren’t quite what they seem. Meet Keith—a very cute cat with a magical hat! When Keith wears the hat, it makes bunnies appear out of nowhere! It even makes a stick move all on its own! But when Keith’s hat falls off, will the magic still work and save the day?

Projects range from one-of-a-kind hats, blankets, and cardigans to mermaid-tail sleeping bags, hedgehog mittens, ballet slippers, and toys.

Racism is resilient, duplicitous, and endlessly adaptable, so it is no surprise that America is again in a period of civil rights activism. A significant reason racism endures is because it is structural: it's embedded in culture and in institutions. One of the places that racism hides-and thus perhaps the best place to oppose it-is books for young people. Was the Cat in the Hat Black? presents five serious critiques of the history and current state of children's literature tempestuous relationship with both implicit and explicit forms of racism. The book fearlessly examines topics both vivid-such as The Cat in the Hat's roots in blackface minstrelsy-and more opaque, like how the children's book industry can perpetuate structural racism via whitewashed covers even while making efforts to increase diversity. Rooted in research yet written with a lively, crackling touch, Nel delves into years of literary criticism and recent sociological data in order to show a better way forward. Though much of what is proposed here could be endlessly argued, the knowledge that what we learn in childhood imparts both subtle and explicit lessons about whose lives matter is not debatable. The text concludes with a short and stark proposal of actions everyone-reader, author, publisher, scholar, citizen- can take to fight the biases and prejudices that infect children's literature. While Was the Cat in the Hat Black? does not assume it has all the answers to such a deeply systemic problem, its audacity should stimulate discussion and activism.