AUNT LUCY WENT TO BUY A HAT

Poster Lady for the easily sidetracked, Aunt Lucy, thinking her brand-new blue one has gone missing (it’s actually hanging from its ribbon down her back), goes out to buy a hat and comes back with a cat, goes out for milk (for the cat, silly) and returns with silk, seeks thread but finds a bed, and so on. Finally, her new pet sees her supposedly lost old hat blow by, and fetches it back—behavior more likely for a dog, to be sure, but call it poetic license. Huliska-Beith gives Aunt Lucy a tall beehive and purple-rimmed glasses, placing her, along with scatters of domestic bric-a-brac and tippy buildings, against flattened planes of color, for a postmodern look. It’s a droll bit of nonsense that should draw a chuckle from Old Mother Hubbard fans. (Picture book. 6-8)