Review: The Lucky Hat, a children’s picture book by a local Flagstaff writer
Reviewed by Angelé Sionna

 

The latest children’s book by Flagstaff writer Matthew Henry Hall is also the latest release from the Grand Canyon Association.

The Lucky Hat is a local story that connects people through place and time. It takes readers along on the journey of a boy named Michael who loses the cherished hand-made hat his grandmother gave him in the Grand Canyon. He returns season after season in search of the hat with no luck. He eventually finds friendship and his future wife on the journey. The two share the love for hiking the canyon with their daughter while they continue the decade-long search.

Along the way, readers move through layers of the canyon on the different trails the characters search for the hat and get to see some of the creatures who live there, all beautifully illustrated by Utah artist Jim Madsen.

The story is a work of fiction, but reads like it could be a nonfiction tale. Hall says his idea came during a hike he and his best friend took on the Tanner Trail where they speculated about hats lost to the canyon’s flora and fauna.

As a mom of three elementary-aged children, I appreciated the lessons in this heart-warming picture book. It inspired us to talk about how we might have favorite “lucky” things but it’s really each other and doing things together that makes us feel loved and lucky in life. We also talked about all the animals in the canyon who become guardians of the hat through the years, so they learned a little something too. And of course, they asked to go back to the canyon again.

The Lucky Hat is Hall’s second picture book. His first, Phoebe and Chub, was a finalist for a Western Writer of America Storyteller award. Hall also has collaborated with Flagstaff-based artist Joe Sorren on two books.

Proceeds from the sale of The Lucky Hat directly support Grand Canyon National Park. It is available on their website as well as Starlight Books and Barefoot Cowgirl Books.

You can’t really buy a more local for a holiday present for your children – a story that takes place in Northern Arizona, written by a Flagstaff writer who got his MA in creative writing from NAU and is the artist in residence this year at Flagstaff Junior Academy published by a local nonprofit and sold currently only in locally-owned bookstores.