  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 06/01/2015 PreS-Gr 1—A frantic frolic through London in an attempt to recover the queen's blue-and-red hat introduces readers to some of the famous sights in the English capital. When a gust of wind blows the hat off her head, the queen, her corgi, and her uniformed Buckingham Palace guards take off in hot pursuit. They climb over one of the lions at Trafalgar Square, run through the London Zoo, travel by Underground (while the queen drives) and scale the London Eye, Tower Bridge, and Big Ben, but to no avail. The wind is relentless and keeps the hat just out of reach until it finally comes to rest on the head of the youngest heir to the throne. The queen places it back on her head and calmly walks away with the baby in a perambulator. The blue, red, and black cartoon illustrations on white pages are the highlight here, with humorous details aplenty. VERDICT A slight story, stylish art, and a page of brief facts about the city create a breezy but ephemeral offering that might not warrant repeated readings.—Maryann H. Owen, Children's Literature Specialist, Mt. Pleasant, WI - Copyright 2015 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Booklist - 09/01/2015 She is little, but she is fierce: when the wind has the gall to blow the Queen’s hat from her head (while “on her way to visit someone very special,” no less), she and her sweatered corgi hesitate not a moment before running after it. But as the Queen dashes after her hat, what seems like the entire Royal Guard dashes after her. The wind is so strong that it takes the hat all over London’s landmarks before finally alighting on the stroller of her very special someone. The illustrations gradually pan out, so what seems at first like a few diligent men soon becomes a crew of them crammed onto the Underground, and finally a swarm that spans the entirety of Tower Bridge. It all culminates when, in Mary Poppins fashion, they use their umbrellas to ever-so-properly float down from Big Ben to Kensington Palace. The primarily red-and-blue illustrations hammer home this homage to London, and even young readers unfamiliar with the landmarks (or this particular queen) will enjoy watching the guards, drawn in painstaking detail, chase their monarch around the city. - Copyright 2015 Booklist. Loading...
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