Tamzin Merchant’s The Hatmakers is a magical adventure for 9 year olds about a family who make hats out of weather, feathers and whatever their ships bring home.<\/p>\n
Cordelia is eleven and she is playing pirates in her bedroom during a thunderstorm when somebody starts hammering on the front door.<\/p>\n
She is down the spiral staircase in about three heartbeats, past her snoozing great-aunt and the lilac fire, certain it’s her father back from sea.<\/p>\n
It isn’t. It’s Lord Witloof, soaked through, and he has come to say that the Jolly Bonnet went onto the rocks and that nobody survived.<\/p>\n
Cordelia refuses to accept it. Lost is not the same as gone, she decides. If her father is lost then he can be found. So she writes him a note, seals it in a tiny bottle and sends it off on the leg of a Quest Pigeon called Agatha.<\/p>\n
Her uncle cries into a green silk hanky. Cordelia pats his shoulder and tells him not to worry.<\/p>\n
What makes this one so lovely to read is the house. Hatmaker House has a hearthrug that trips you deliberately, a floorboard that is ticklish, and a cupboard for invisible things whose door has gone invisible too. Only Cordelia knows how to squint at the wall to find the handle.<\/p>\n
There’s a Menacing Cabinet as well, iron, always locked, holding every ingredient judged too dangerous to use. She has never once been allowed to see inside (which tells you roughly how the book is going to go).<\/p>\n
And she isn’t allowed to make a hat. Not until she’s sixteen. That’s five whole years of watching other people do the thing your fingers are itching for.<\/p>\n
Do know what you’re handing over. The father is lost at sea in chapter two, not later, and the story of how Cordelia’s mother died in a burning ship is told early on as well. Neither is dwelt on cruelly, but they’re both there in the first few pages.<\/p>\n
For a child who has ever been told they’re too young for the interesting job, Cordelia is very good company indeed.<\/p>\n
If this one goes down well, The Mapmakers is in the library. Cordelia is out in London at night following the North Star, with a map drawn in ink you can only read by starlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tamzin Merchant’s The Hatmakers is a magical adventure for 9 year olds about a family who make hats out of weather, feathers and whatever their ships bring home. Cordelia is eleven and she is playing pirates in her bedroom during a thunderstorm when somebody starts hammering on the front door. She is down the spiral […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11585,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9224,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Mapmakers","lr_seo_hook":"A family who make magic hats, and a girl who refuses to believe the worst."},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[964],"class_list":["post-9110","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-tamzin-merchant"],"yoast_title":"The Hatmakers by Tamzin Merchant | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A family who make magic hats, and a girl who refuses to believe the worst. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n