What's in that hat?

It's time to write a post about the first of two new kids' books coming this fall. The new picture books is "Mr. Zinger's Hat," with illustrations by Dusan Petricic. I've really enjoyed reading this story to audiences of adults and kids over the last couple of years, I guess because it's really a story about storytelling. Because it's not old Mr. Zinger's hat itself that's important, but the story that seems to be stirring inside it. Mr. Zinger himself was inspired by one of my favourite writers. (I won't say who, but he shouldn't be too hard for some people to figure out.) Even as an old man, this writer was busy making up stories and he used to walk around the courtyard of his apartment in New York for exercise and inspiration. My story is a kind of fantasy, then; what if I'd met the writer when I was a boy? What might have happened?