The pink hat by Andrew Joyner

Random House, 2018. ISBN 9780143789369
(Age: 4+) Highly recommended. Themes: Women's rights, Power. An older woman knits a pink hat. She uses it in a number of ways until one day the wind sweeps it out of her window and into the street. A cat plays with it as it flies up again into a tree. Several children try to get it down, and it falls into a pram where a baby hugs it. It flies off again and is chased by a dog, until it is found by a young girl. She takes it home and washes it, wearing it while she boxes at the gym, goes shopping with her dog, goes swimming, uses it as a pillow as she lies on the lawn and then joins a parade where everyone is wearing a pink hat.
The pink hat stands out on every page in its different guises and uses, being chased by various people and animals, finding a home in many different places and finally being washed and cared for by a young girl.
The pink on top of every head in the parade evokes a coming together, a solidarity of opinions and aims as the large group marches for women's rights.
Each page is full of movement as the hat travels from one place to another, being shared by a diverse range of people and animals, forming a cohesive bond between them all. The line illustrations are beguiling in their simple message of women's rights.
This stunning picture book grew out of the march held across the world in January 2017, in which an estimated five million people marched in eighty two countries, promoting the idea that women's rights are human rights.
It is a book designed to encourage discussion and interest and it does that admirably.
Fran Knight