The book presents a complex ethical message, with an amoral narrator. The small fish can be seen as either talking to the reader or themselves. The small fish, acting as the book's narrator through its monologue, is not only amoral but also 'outrageous' in the claims that it will not get caught. The little fish remains convinced that the theft will not be found out, but at the end of the story the big fish is wearing the hat.Īs Roger Sutton noted in his review of the book for The New York Times, the book can only be understood by weighing the words against the actions depicted in the illustrations, since what happens at the end is not explicitly stated but instead left to the reader to figure out. The little fish goes to hide in some plants, and is observed by a crab who tells the big fish, who follows the little fish. Except the big fish does wake up and does notice. Plot Ī small fish has stolen a hat from a big sleeping fish, and boasts about how easy it will be for him to get away with the theft, because the big fish will not wake up any time soon and maybe not even not notice the missing hat, or know who stole it, or where the small fish is going. In October 2019, the book's publisher, Candlewick Press released a boxed set featuring This is Not My Hat along with its two companion books ( I Want My Hat Back and We Found a Hat), calling it Jon Klassen’s Hat Box. In 2014 an audiobook narrated by John Keating and accompanied by string instruments to represent the actions of the fish, in a way similar to the orchestration of Peter and the Wolf, was released by Weston Woods Studios, Inc. Klassen toured 15 cities in the United States to promote the book. The book was published on October 9, 2012, and was translated into more than 22 languages. For this book he sketched the illustrations in ink before digitizing them and finishing the colors and details electronically. Klassen also felt that this story was more 'dramatic' than his earlier work and cited ' The Tell-Tale Heart' as a thematic inspiration. Klassen then switched from mammals to fish. Following the success of I Want My Hat Back, Klassen attempted unsuccessfully to tell more stories with the same characters, until the art director at his publisher, Candlewick Press, suggested he try new characters instead.

This is not my hat book