THE MAGIC HAT

Hopping from head to head, a wizard’s errant hat works a quick series of transformations in this giddy, rhymed episode. As gangs of delighted children look on in Tusa’s (Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden, 2001, etc.) populous, loosely drawn watercolors, the hat, a quirky blue number resembling an upside-down tureen, changes a crabby man into an oversized toad, a park-bench snoozer into a bear, and so on. At last, a gigantic, smiling wizard dances into the picture to reclaim it and turns everyone back to normal. Until his arrival, the last rhyming word in each verse is printed on the following page to heighten suspense, so this broad, lively successor to Tony Johnston’s Witch’s Hat (1984) will have children demanding repeated readings and completing each verse at top volume: “Oh, the magic hat, the magic hat! / It moved like this, it moved like that! / It spun through the air / (It’s true! It’s true!) / And sat on the head of a . . . KANGAROO!” (Picture book. 5-7)