Aunt Flossie's Hats and Crab Cakes Later

by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard, James E. Ransome (Illustrator)

Sunday afternoons are Sarah and Susan's favorite time of the week. That's when they visit Great-great-aunt Flossie--and hear her stories about days of long ago, when she was young. American Bookseller Pick of the Lists. Parents' Choice Picture Book Award. Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. Full-color illustrations.

Genres: Picture Books, Family, Childrens, Historical Fiction, Fiction, African American, Realistic Fiction

31 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Tamera Fleming · Rating 5 out of 5]

1) Book summary: The book is about two little girls go visit their aunt every Sunday afternoon. They love their aunt house because it is crowded with memories and stuff. Aunt Flossie loves hats and each one of her hats represents one her memories. Every Sunday, the girls eat cookies and finish their day eating crab cakes with their aunt.

2) Grade level, interest level, lexile: PreK-3rd, ages 4-7, 400L

3) Appropriate classroom use (subject area) : Reading block

4) Individual students who might benefit from reading: Children who love spending time with their family.

5) Small group use (literary circles): I can have the students write down each memory aunt Flossies has with each hat.

6) Whole class use (read aloud): I wouldn't use this as a whole class book

7) Related books in genre/subject or content area: Amazing Grace, A moment in time

8) Multimedia connections (audio book, movie) available: Kindle, School & Library Binding, Paperback, Audio, Cassette

[Jana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome picture book with beautifully painted illustrations that takes the children in the story on a walk down memory lane by way of their aunt's collection of hats. Susan and her sister, Sarah, visit their great great aunt on Sundays. After tea and cookies, the girls look forward to looking at her hats. Each hat that comes out of its box has a special memory attached and Aunt Flossie tells the story. I think this would be a good mentor text to use with my students. I love how an item, such as an old hat, can become the centerpiece of a personal narrative. I'm glad I have this book in my classroom library!

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

My three year old really enjoyed this book. Also it is based in Baltimore which for us makes it a local story. The illustrations show rowhouse which are common in this area. One pitfall is that you cannot predict the ending at all unless you pre-read by looking at all the pictures.

[ke-sha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book. It made mentions of moments in history through good story telling. It shows us how objects can bring back memories like it only happen yesterday. A good fun light read that just might get your kids thinking about history.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

every family has at least one hat lady

[Mya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book. I enjoyed it, especially the illustrations!

[Mr. Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dope

[Janelle Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful children's book centering around Aunt Flossie's many hats, and the stories she tells.

[📚Linda Blake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to go to Aunt Flossie’s house too. I want to see all the things she has arranged to make a home, but mostly I want to try on the hats with the girls and hear Aunt Flossie’s hat stories. I fell into this world of love and family joy.

[Kacie Winfield]

Young girls who visit Aunt Flossie's house try on her many hats and relive the life she once lived. The girls stepped into a whole new world.

[Nicole Survis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunt Flossie's Hat (and Crab Cakes Later) is an endearing story about two young girls named Sarah and Susan who go to visit their Great Aunt Flossie on Sunday afternoons. While at her house they explore her wide variety of hats. The hats take Aunt Flossie back in time to her memories of wearing them and she explores these memories with her nieces. Howard's use of historical information from Baltimore and the girls introduction to their family history through fun afternoon's with their aunt serve to make this an excellent example of a realistic fiction for young readers.

As a K teacher, I enjoyed reading this story to my students and helping them make text to self-connections. While I do not work in Baltimore, my students are able to easily identify with the main character's age and race, which helped them to use the story as a jumping off point to their own family history.

It is a great story about stories, and a nice portrayal of a good relationship between children and their older family. While not every child will have the same traditions with their family, Aunt Flossie's Hat (and Crab Cakes Later) is a sweet story for children to see how memories can be shared and enjoyed by the entire family!

[Genee121 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aunt Flossie’s Hats and Crab Cakes Later by Elizabeth Howard, James E. Ransome (Illustrator) is a beautiful, heart-warming story about how two little girls, Sarah and Susan spend quality time with their Aunt Flossie on Sunday afternoons where they’d try on hats from Aunt Flossie’s incredible hat collection while listening to the stories that each hat came with. The illustrations are rich with different colors that show every detail from the characters faces to the each hat that is shown.

This story took me back to my childhood when I would spend time with my Great Aunts (Alice & Lois) during the summer months. They had cherry trees in their backyard my sisters and I always filled our bellies with when visiting. We’d also try on their clothes along with hats that dated back to the 1920’s and listen to the stories that came with the shoes, hats, skirts, blouses and accessories. What fond memories I have stored in my heart of times shared with my aunts at their home from yesteryears. Today they live in a nursing home that I visit often and remind them of the wonderful childhood memories that I now share with my child.

[Emily Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunt Flossie’s Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard is a story of two young girls, Susan and Sarah, who love visiting their Great Aunt Flossie house. Aunt Flossie has a giant hat collection that the girls enjoy playing with. Her hat collection not only contains many fun hats to play with but also has lots of stories for Aunt Flossie to tell the girls. The girls love the stories that go along with each hat. Their favorite story is when Aunt Flossie’s best Sunday hat blew off her head and into a near by pond. The best Sunday hat is recovered and then followed by a memory of eating crab cakes. Susan and Sarah get to enjoy a snack consisting of crab cakes made with found memories and love.
The illustrations by James Ransome provide readers with that old timey feel that the story has. Through these paintings the memories that each hat brings is shown with lots of detail that children can be engaged with. This would be a good book to use with third graders to discuss family traditions or customs in the African American culture, like wearing hats to church.

[Jelisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great depiction of the importance of hats within the female African American community. African American women take much pride in their hats. These hats are cherished and shown off at social events as well as Sunday morning church services. In this story two little girls play dress up in their Aunt Flossie’s Hats as she revisits times in her past when the hats were worn. The story revisits important historical events in the Aunt’s life such as a big fire in Baltimore as well as a war with France. The subgroup represented in this book is present day Afro/African Americans. The genre of this novel is realistic fiction but it also included elements of historical fiction as well. This book is told in from the perspective a little girl who speaks of her aunt’s hats and their symbolic correlation to significant historical events of her aunt’s past.

[Kaycee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about two young girls visiting their older Great Great Aunt Flossie. Flossie has all sorts of hats and has a story for each one of those hats about when she was a young girl. Some of those stories involve historical things like a big fire or the end of the Great War and some involve family. This book had very nice illustrations that were very detailed, the words were kept within the illustrations so the words almost seemed like they were less important than the pictures. The pictures did work well and helped tell the story. My biggest complaint with this book is it could have had so much more details about Aunt Flossie's memories and could have given a much better first person perspective of these really historic moments, but instead the focus was on the two children half-listening while playing with the hats.

[Haley Dowty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard is a classic story about family. Two young girls go over their Great-great-aunt Flossie's house to visit with her every Sunday. Their favorite thing to do is look through her boxes and boxes of hats and hear the stories that go along with each hat. This is a very sweet story that teaches children about the importance of family. The paintings by James Ransome are gorgeous and really enhance the story. They allow the readers to experience the story in the decade it was intended for. It is also a good book to teach children about African American culture and the importance of family. This would be a good book to read with children in the middle elementary grades.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is about two young girls listening to their great-aunt's stories.

She tells three stories relating to an event that happened when she was wearing each of three hats. Predictably, the "best" story is the one with no historical significance, but the one that involves the two young girls :) Children are like that, it's very realistic.

Afterwards they have crab cakes, and it's clear that this is the normal weekly end to their visit.

This is a very simple story, very loving, and I suspect it's based on the author's actual family.

Please note that it's somewhat wordy, and is probably better suited for the older end of the 4-8 range.

[Lastrong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunt Flossie has lots of hats and lots of stories that go along with them. Sarah loved going to her Aunt Flossies's house on Sunday afternoon, because she knew an adventure awaited her. Sharing her stories verbally with the children celebrated generations of tradition along with laughter. And lets not forget the crabcakes! The pictures that were kept over the years help the stories come alive even more. The author shares the importance of asking questions as well as listening and recording some of the best lived stories ever told. Early readers as well as young and adult readers could appreciate the value this award winning story.I would recommend this book.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this book would be worthwhile to have in a classroom as part of a multicultural classroom library. It projects a commonality between different ethnic groups and portrays the characters in a non-stereotypical way. I found the language of this story to be very poetic and rhythmic. It flowed well and was successful in including different voices in the telling of the story. The illustrations were very vivid, colorful, and cheerful, and enhanced the happy memories of the narrative.

[Robyn Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a touching story about two young girls that reminisce about visiting their Aunt Flossie's house. During each visit, it was routine for the girls to sit and enjoy tea, cookies, and crab cakes later. After feasting, the girls would play dress up with their aunts hats. This story is a great read aloud as well as an enhancement for the classroom library. Students would love to read this story during DEAR or SSR time.

[Alex.ferg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book, and I love that you can use it as a multicultural/diversity book. It is so important to show kids a wide variety of styles and characters so that they can learn to appreciate each other as individuals and other perspectives. The pictures in this book are so strong and warm, and full of character. I love that there is a different story for each hat, some happy and some a little sad. Again it is good to expose kids to a variety of things.

[Phyllis Vaughan Pilewski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Howard was my professor at West Virginia University and was certainly one of my favorites. Years later when my daughter was born, this was the first book that I bought for her. I am in my 42nd year of being a middle school librarian, and I read Dr. Howard's books to my students every year. I have such fond memories of her class and also of visiting in her beautiful home one time after visiting a school in Shadyside with our college class.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful book about sharing oral histories and family tradition. Sarah and Susan have a wonderful time when they visit their great-great aunt Flossie. They can always count on tea and cookies, hearing a good story about one of her beautiful hats and eating crab cakes later. Aunt Flossie gets to stroll down memory lane and share with the girls stories about her life and their family history. Lovely illustrations.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about two girls who visit their great aunt and love to hear her stories about all of her hats. They share stories with one another and love the ones with themselves it them the most.

The media used here seems to be watercolor.

I would teach this book just as a book to read aloud to the class for fun. I don't see much academic value to this book, it is more for entertainment purposes but it is still a cute book that can teach vocabulary.

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful tale about family and memories. We really enjoyed reading along with this book as we listened to it on audiocasette. The historical events that occurred were woven seamlessly into the reminiscences of the hats worn on different occasions. We loved that the family came together for a terrific meal at the end of the story. And the oil paintings are terrific, too.

[Wilma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a colorful, multicultural book. It deals with children visiting an older relative and through her collection of hats they revisit her memories. The children are not only entertained but learn some family history. Many extended activities can be developed. Ages: 2nd grade

[Cya]

So many hats, so many stories of a life lived. This book is an historical fit ion book that shows us our common bonds human beings. Great to read and have children ponder what hat they would wear during different periods in history.

[Malissa]

I really enjoyed this book. It seems to be very relatable for young students. We always ask students to think about artifacts they have to write about. This would be a great text to illustrate that idea. I also like her use of repetition in a few places that could be a mentor to students.

[Zinnada Hodges · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story. Especially since it mentions my hometown, Baltimore. The relationship that the girls have with their great aunt is adorable. It encourages young girls (and older women) to take the time to spend with them.

[LeShea Green]

In this story two little girls love to try on their Aunt Flossie's hats from her collection. As the girls try on different hats, each hat holds a story,a memory that close and dear to auntie Flossie's heart. The two little girls listen to Aunt Flossie's stories as she reminiscent about her past.