Home > Categories > Books > Kids - General > Sebastian Lives in a Hat review
Sebastian is a pink fuzzy baby wombat. He does not have a mother to look after him, and so he lives in a woolly hat and is looked after by a human family. When he is big he might not need his hat any more, but for now it keeps him safe and warm.
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Sebastian lives in a hat has been a loved book in our house lately my 4 year old just loves it. He is a huge animal lover being in charge of feeding the pets at home he is very fond of looking after animals so this book has been a hit. He has been very interested about Sebastian and the human family that rescue him and wonders if we can rescue a wimbat.
I love classic books so when I seen this was an anniversary edition I was very excited to have it to join our little library. We have many books from when I was young and even from when my now 14 year old was wee. This book is super sweet and Sebastian illustrated perfectly is so loveable you get excited seeing him grow and learn from his human family. The book certainly makes you feel part of the journey.
I think it is a great book to teach our children about conservation and caring for our wildlife and although this is an Australian story it is also relevant to New Zealand as it is important for our New Zealand children to protect our Native Wildlife like Kiwi. This is particularly important to our family and my son loves to read stories about how we can carr for animals. For young children like my boy this story makes it easy to understand.
Although he was initially saddened at the thought Sebastian didn't have a mother to take care of him he soon began to talk about how it is nice hr has a new family. This opened up questions as to where our pets mummies where so the book really got him thinking a lot and I think this is why we have revisted it so many times. Each and every time we have read it he has been hooked on every word so I give the book a big thumbs up.
Sebastian Lives in a Hat is a super cute paper back picture book about a baby wombat, and his rescue and growth in a human family. I was really excited to see this one. My eldest daughter is deeply into animals and their welfare. She goes back and forward on becoming a vet or a biologist of some sort. So I thought she would like this book.
We sat down on the first night and I said to her, you have a go at reading it. There was some protest but she got on with it relatively quickly. She read about 2/3s of the book, and then she felt too tired to keep reading, so I finished the book off. She thought that it was a beautiful story and she was really pleased to know that it was based on a true story and that the author had lots of experience with baby wombats. She thought it was really sad about Sebastian's mother but was very pleased that he had his hat.
I must admit I shed a few tears through this book and especially when the fate of mum is revealed. It's done very matter-of-fact, with an image of a wombat lying down. There is no gore but the text simply explains what happens with little emotion. My daughter took the information in and said "oh, that's sad" but she was otherwise unaffected by it. Her focus was purely on Sebastian and making sure he was okay.
I read this to my youngest and found that she was also unaffected by the death in the book though I felt the need to offer some comfort. I guess they have "these things happen" ingrained in them as kids. Though if you have a sensitive child I would suggest treading carefully with this one.
Another day my eldest forgot her homework and I said she had to read this book. She said to me "okay, but only three pages?" I agreed. Then she proceeded to knock the whole thing out and was so proud to have read it all. It's been a winner and especially because it is about a real situation, a real animal, care, welfare and conservation. So if your kids like that sort of thing too, this could be a great gift.
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