Just So Stories

Walker Books Australia

June 2025

Imprint: Walker Books

ISBN13:9781529517965

Australia RRP:$16.99

New Zealand RRP:$18.99

When your copy of The Hat of Great Importance arrives with its own matched hat, it’s a red-letter day indeed! After the first in the series, I was looking forward to the second and another round of monitor angst, humour, diabolical dastardly deeds and a thread of friendship like all others – as strong as a spiderweb but, sometimes, as easily wrecked. Thankfully, as we know webs can be repaired and so it goes with our favourite monitors, Zeke, Daniel and Alicia.

Things start to go awry when Daniel appears for the bus pick-up wearing a pink hat. Zeke is aghast, though he tries to be diplomatic while Alicia is far more sanguine. Zeke thinks that only birds wear hats. NO self-respecting lizard should wear one. But Daniel is fizzing with excitement over his hat and within a very short time, there is a fracture in the friendship.

There are complications a-plenty besides the hat issue. There is a new student, Peggy, a fish who propels along the corridors in her own tank and speaks via a tube – another minority group student, just like the monitors who are from the poor side of town.

There is blind eagle, Miel, who has become friends with the lizards, wrestling with his inner primeval urges that tell him to eat FISH. There is the threat of the Pelicanarssus family’s Death Ray of Death under construction and ready to be aimed at any likely target. And what about the school Guidance Counsellor who seems to be giving advice that splinters friendships even more?

It really is just like any middle school [ok, maybe not the Death Ray of Death] with factions, and prejudices and the good students, the rowdy ones, the friendships that can be fragile, the newcomers who can be deceptive. It’s a lot of fun and absurdity but, once again, with some excellent themes woven throughout.

I ask myself, is there anything Ness can’t do? Because he kicks a goal every single time. I bet his shopping list is worth a read.

You will, no doubt, already have some fans from the first book ready to pounce on this one. Perfect for your mid-primary readers who are really consolidating their skills, especially with the plentiful illustrations by Tim Miller, which are as highly amusing as the text.

Meanwhile, I have my own hat of great importance – all I need now is to bump into Patrick somewhere [given I missed him at Quick Brown Fox recently! cue gnashing of teeth...] and have it signed! Big 5 rating for this one 🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎 for kiddos from around 8 years upwards.