Happy Birthday, Madame Chapeau

August 18, 2014
An inspired milliner named Madame Chapeau stars in this eminently stylish tale from the duo behind Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer. While Madame Chapeau can match people to hats with effortless aplomb, she is lonely and dines aloneâeven on her birthday. When a crow steals her birthday bonnet ("Someone quite special once made that for me," she declares, giving chase), Parisians of all stripes offer her the hats off their heads, yet none is quite right. Finally, a girl gives her a colorful knit cap with yellow earflaps and green pom-pomsâjust the spunky accessory to lift Madame Chapeau out of her funk: "They feasted on gateau and sorbet with fruit/ and danced through the night at Chez Snooty-Patoot./ Then Madame Chapeau wore her birthday hat home./ And never again did she dine all alone." Entirely in step with the buoyancy of Beaty's rhymes, Roberts revels in filling the streets of Paris with multiculturally modish figures wearing couture ensembles, topped off (quite literally) by gloriously elaborate headpieces. Ages 4â8. Author's agent: Edward Necarsulmer IV, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. Illustrator's agent: Artist Partners of London.

August 1, 2014
The world's most elegant milliner loses her birthday bonnet, and the whole city rushes to help. "In a three-story house with a shop down below / lived the world's finest hatmaker, Madame Chapeau." Madame Chapeau spends her days making hats for everyone, but her evenings are very lonely. However, each year on her birthday, she carefully unpacks a special hat to wear out to dinner to a fancy restaurant (the brilliantly named Chez Snooty-Patoot). But this year, a crow steals her hat! A baker, a policeman, a cowboy and many others offer their own, very particular, caps to replace it, but Madame Chapeau can't take a hat away from its perfect owner. "She knew that each hat-with its feathers or fur- / was made for someone who was simply not her." Luckily, a small tot with lots of fuzzy yarn saves the day. With a text that can only be described as jaunty (and masterful in its inventive settings on the page), Beaty carries the bounces and lilts to the very last page. Roberts' colorful, exaggerated hats (many of which are modeled on real designs) whimsically adorn the multicultural Parisian public. An appended artist's note describes Roberts' inspirations. The underlying suggestion that no one is as alone as they believe is lovely enough, but the fun of reading this aloud elevates it even more. (Picture book. 4-7)

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