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Summary
Summary
Joseph had a little overcoat, but it was full of holes--just like this book! When Joseph's coat got too old and shabby, he made it into a jacket. But what did he make it into after that? And after that?As children turn the pages of this book, they can use the die-cut holes to guess what Joseph will be making next from his amazing overcoat, while they laugh at the bold, cheerful artwork and learn that you can always make something, even out of nothing.
Author Notes
Simms Taback was born on February 13, 1932 in New York City. Before serving two years in the Army, he graduated from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 1953. He worked as an art director at CBS Records and The New York Times and as an advertising art director at William Douglas McAdams. He designed and illustrated the first McDonald's Happy Meal box in the 1970s.
During his lifetime, he was the illustrator and occasional author of about 50 children's books including There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, which won the Caldecott Medal in 2000, and Postcards from Camp. He died of pancreatic cancer on December 25, 2011 at the age of 79.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
As in his Caldecott Honor book, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, Taback's inventive use of die-cut pages shows off his signature artwork, here newly created for his 1977 adaptation of a Yiddish folk song. 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 coatÄa buttonÄand decides to make a book about it. "Which shows... you can always make something out of nothing," writes Taback, who wryly slips himself into his story by depicting Joseph creating a dummy for the book that readers are holding. 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"; a newspaper headline announces, "Fiddler on Roof Falls off Roof"). With its effective repetition and an abundance of visual humor, this is tailor-made for reading aloud. All ages. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Primary) ""Joseph had a little overcoat. It was old and worn. So he made a jacket out of it and went to the fair."" So begins this adaptation of a Yiddish folk song (a newly illustrated version of a book Taback first did in 1977). The text is simple to the point of prosaicness-nowhere near as inventive and jazzy as the illustrator's riff on There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly-but the art sings with color and movement and humor and personality. Taback employs die-cuts with the same effectiveness and cleverness as he did in There Was an Old Lady to tell the story of resourceful Joseph, a farmer/tailor of Yehupetz, Poland, who recycles his worn overcoat into ever-smaller elements (jacket, vest, scarf, tie, handkerchief, and button). Taback incorporates detail after detail of Jewish life-the Yiddish newspaper the Morning Freiheit; references to Sholom Aleichem and other writers and philosophers; Yiddish proverbs and Chelm stories-to create a veritable pageant of pre-WWII Jewish-Polish life. (In fact, the book is as much a tribute to a vanished way of life as it is a story, but the tribute only enriches the tale.) Broad comedy plays an important part of the pageant: Joseph looks so unhappy and gets such expressively reproachful looks from his animals when his garments become ""old and worn""; in contrast, he is all smiles when, each time, he makes something new out of the old. (The exceptionally clever cover design-which incorporates die-cuts to show first a distressingly full-of-holes and then a jauntily patched overcoat-echoes this satisfying pattern.) Double-page spreads employ a mixture of painting and collage to somewhat surreal but delightful effect, such as the one in which Joseph is standing in a field covered with photographs of fruits and vegetables of every kind, from watermelons to jalape±o peppers. In the end, Joseph loses his button, his last bit of overcoat; left with nothing, he makes one more item-this book. Don't you lose it: clever, visually engrossing, poignant, it's worth holding on to. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Ages 4^-7. This newly illustrated version of a book Taback first published in 1977 is a true example of accomplished bookmaking--from the typography and the endpapers to the bar code, set in what appears to be a patch of fabric. Taback's mixed-media and collage illustrations are alive with warmth, humor, and humanity. Their colors are festive yet controlled, and they are filled with homey clutter, interesting characters, and a million details to bring children back again and again. The simple text, which was adapted from the Yiddish song "I Had a Little Overcoat," begins as Joseph makes a jacket from his old, worn coat. When the jacket wears out, Joseph makes a vest, and so on, until he has only enough to cover a button. Cut outs emphasize the use and reuse of the material and add to the general sense of fun. When Joseph loses, he writes a story about it all, bringing children to the moral "You can always make something out of nothing." --Tim Arnold
School Library Journal Review
Learning Activity: Have students create cut-outs of Joseph's garments as they retell the story, demonstrating their understanding of the central message and its key details. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.