Week Three: Caldecott winners 1990-2009: Joseph Had A Little Overcoat

Joseph Had A Little Overcoat by Simms Taback
(cover image from Amazon.com)

Bibliography: Taback, S. (1999). Joseph had a little overcoat. New York: Viking. ISBN: 9780670878550

SUMMARY
Joseph had an overcoat. When the coat became too tattered and old, he made a jacket out of it. Then a vest, a scarf, a necktie, a handkerchief, and finally a button. When Joseph lost the button, he wrote a story about the overcoat, reminding readers that one can always create something out of nothing.

MY IMPRESSIONS
I thoroughly enjoyed Joseph Had a Little Overcoat. It contained a whimsical yet meaningful tale about resourcefulness and creativity. The repetitious and rhythmical text means that young readers can easily follow the progression of the story and make guesses as to which article of clothing comes next for Joseph. The moral appeals to parents and teachers.

I understand why this book won the Caldecott Honor medal. The illustrations were the best part--colorful, funny and sometimes overwhelming in the level of detail. Taback uses watercolor, gouache, pencil, ink and collage to depict Joseph, who looks a lot like Taback. Joseph is shown in scenes from his life--in the field with chickens, dancing at a wedding, gathered with friends and family--and each incarnation of the coat appears as a diecut hole in the subsequent page. Strips of fabric and rows of buttons cover the lining pages and the back cover, again stressing the crafty mood to the story. It's predictable that Joseph will make a new piece of clothing when his old one wears out, and readers can have fun guessing what the next one will be. My favorite part was the combination of drawn images and found ones. Crowds of people wear clothes made from cut pieces of paper of fabric designs, the rugs are combinations of knits and weaves of clothes from magazine pages, images of fruits and vegetables populate the field outside Taback's house, and real photographs show up in photo frames and newspapers. There is so much color and texture in the illustrations that I spent a long time studying the pages. Still, even with the plethora of shapes, hues, lines and colors, there's an odd balance to the book. Somehow, it all fits in with the quirky character of Joseph. Taback also includes his Jewish culture by including menorahs, traditional fashions, Hebrew characters and "mozel tov" cross-stitches hanging from the wall. Each reading of the book means discovering new objects hidden in the page or conversations about the bric-a-brac found in Joseph's world.

ACTIVITIES
This book would be a fun story time for kids aged three to eight--especially if they were encouraged to guess the next item of clothing. If the librarian were crafty themselves, they could dress up (or take off) each garment as it was named (although it might be too hot to wear an overcoat, jacket, vest, tie, scarf, etc. in the summertime.)

Teach children the Yiddish folksong at the end. Talk about Jewish traditions and holidays.

Combine craft activities with Joseph Had a Little Overcoat. Give each participant an overcoat cut out of construction paper. Have them decorate it with string, buttons, paper, etc., or turn the overcoat into something else with scissors. These same construction paper cut-outs could also have small holes punched along the side so children could weave in string (instead of using real needles and thread). Ask children to make collages with magazines or newspapers.

Teach a lesson in recycling. Discuss commonly recycled materials and the process of reusing them. Hold up images of objects and ask what they could be recycled into (a tree into a book, a book into a postcard, etc.)

REVIEWS
"Vibrant rich colors, playful details, and skillfully-placed die cuts contribute to the book's raucous merriment that takes this Yiddish folk song far beyond the simple words. The patchwork layout of the pages, the two-dimensional paintings and the exaggerated perspectives, reminiscent of the folk art tradition, are the very fabric that turn this overcoat into a story."
Barbara Z. Kiefer, chair of the Caldecott Award Selection Committee

"In today's throwaway world, Joseph's old-fashioned frugality is a welcome change. Based on a Yiddish song from Simms Taback's youth, the book is filled with rhythms and arresting colors that will delight every reader. As more and more holes appear in Joseph's coat, die-cut holes appear on the pages, hinting at each next manifestation. Every inch of space is crammed with fanciful, funny details, such as the headline on a discarded newspaper: "Fiddler on Roof Falls off Roof." Taback ...has produced a picture book that is as well turned out as its dapper hero."
Emilie Coulter, Amazon.com

"This diverting, sequential story unravels as swiftly as the threads of Joseph's well-loved, patch-covered plaid coat. A flip of the page allows children to peek through to subsequent spreads as Joseph's tailoring produces items of decreasing size. The author puts a droll spin on his narrative when Joseph loses the last remnant of the coat--a button--and decides to make a book about it. Still, it's the bustling mixed-media artwork, highlighted by the strategically placed die-cuts, that steals the show. Taback works into his folk art a menagerie of wide-eyed animals witnessing the overcoat's transformation, miniature photographs superimposed on paintings and some clever asides reproduced in small print (a wall hanging declares, "Better to have an ugly patch than a beautiful hole"). With its effective repetition and an abundance of visual humor, this is tailor-made for reading aloud."
Publisher's Weekly