The Book of Hat

By: Harriet Rowland
Location: NF 920 ROW
Genre: A real life New Zealand Fault in Our Stars story

"Funny, truthful and wise" Sir Peter Jackson

Some books you hear about, people whisper them and as a librarian you hear the whispers. This book has been  the topic of whispering a lot, it is talked about, deeply recommended, and honored in our circles. I simply had to purchase it based on the intensity of the whispers alone.
This book does not whisper- it shouts!

‘This way I will NEVER have to get a job, learn how to cook more than two-minute noodles or do anything mildly productive. I never have to grow up and I can forever be a kid! Though my ‘forever’ is shorter than most, I don’t mind. What I do mind is that I am going to have to leave everyone I love behind.’

Harriet Rowland — known as Hat — was 17 when she was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of cancer that began in her knee. At the time she was a student at Queen Margaret College in Wellington, New Zealand.

Going through treatment was often a lonely time, as friends — while supportive — didn’t always understand Hat’s new life. This was until she fell in love with the character Hazel Grace from John Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars, a girl who talks honestly and openly about living with cancer. Like her, Hat found life changed in ways that were both good and bad: falling in love and hospital stays among them. And she was surprised by how much happiness there was still to find.

Throughout her journey, Hat kept a blog called My Experience of Walking the Dog, and this book is a collection of those posts edited with the author. Why the blog title? Her parents say cancer is like a dog — fine if it stays in its own yard. Hat’s dog got out.

Harriet Rowland entered the Mary Potter hospice in Wellington two days after her book launch, and died surrounded by family and friends at 7.05 am, Friday, 7 March, 2014. This is her unexpected story.

TUESDAY 14 MAY 2013: TO MY IMAGINARY FRIENDS ANNE FRANK AND HAZEL GRACE, THANKS FOR TEACHING ME HOW TO BE STRONG AND FOR REMINDING ME THAT I AM NOT ALONE"