The Sheep That Stole the Farmer’s Hat by Tim Saunders, illustrated by Carla Martell

Title: The Sheep That Stole the Farmer’s Hat

Author: Tim Saunders, illustrated by Carla Martell

Genre: Humour

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 3^rd March 2026

Format: Paperback

Pages: 32

Price: $17.99

Synopsis: All the farmer’s clothes have gone off the line! Who has taken them?

From the brilliant team that created family favourite and bestseller The Tractor has a Wobbly Wheel.

The farm animals are having a field day with all the farmer’s clothes, using them in all sorts of inventive ways.

With perfect bouncy rhyme, this is a silly delight to read out loud.

The illustrations capture the animals’ strange and wonderful inner lives.

~*~

The poor farmer can’t go out and do his work because all his clothes have vanished from the washing line! The sheep has stolen his hat. The goat has taken his coat, the llamas have his pyjamas, and the rest of the clothes are all over the place. There’s not much he can do about it, and all the animals are having too much fun to notice.

This fun picture book is filled with rhymes, animals and funny moments that feel like they would fit in well with limericks. There’s a bit of a nonsense feel to them, but this is a great way to teach kids about rhyme, patterns and can help them learn to recognise words and read confidently. It’s a very interesting book that brings the farmyard to life.

Another thing it does well is it gives the animals their own personalities, and anthropomorphises them, which is something a lot of kids books do. This makes the book a lot of fun, because readers get to see the world through the eyes of the animals, what they get up to and how they understand the world around them.

It’s creativity brings the farm to life, with Tim’s words working well with Carla’s illustrations that are bright, vibrant and something that young children will adore. These books can bring farms to life for children that don’t have access to them, whilst also throwing a bit of humour and nonsense into the story. This is what can make a children’s book lots of fun, and what can make a picture book fun and attractive for young readers.

It is its own world too, where the farm animals are left to their own devices as the farmer is stuck inside without any clothes. This is what makes this a fun read, imagining why the animals did it, and how they all colluded, because it’s all about teamwork in a way and causing havoc without realising what it might result in. This makes the book what it is and hopefully people will love reading it.