Review #4: Joseph Had a Little Overcoat

Bibliography

Taback, Simms.  1999  JOSEPH HAD A LITTLE OVERCOAT.  New York:  Viking Penguin Group.  ISBN 0670878553

Plot Summary

A man named Joseph who lives in a shtetl in Poland uses the material of his old, worn overcoat to make garments of decreasing size in turn, including a jacket, vest, scarf, necktie, handkerchief, and button.  When he loses the button he uses the experience as the basis of a story, proving that “you can always make something out of nothing.”

Analysis

The text has a repetitive structure.  As each garment grows “old and worn” Joseph makes it into something else and wears it for an event of some sort.  In a clever touch that children can enjoy observing, each time the reader turns a page as Joseph makes a new garment a cutout in the page, which forms part of the background in the previous two-page spread, is superimposed over the previous picture of Joseph’s garment to show what it has now become.

The very colorful art combines drawing and watercolor with collage using photographic images of people, books, and more.  The settings and events together depict a sort of idealized panorama of prewar Eastern European rural Jewish life.  There are many details of clothing, houses, and customs of the day.  The backgrounds contain several Yiddish proverbs and references to the famous “Fiddler on the Roof.”  At the end there is an English translation of the Yiddish folk song “I Had a Little Overcoat,” which inspired the story.

Although the tone of the story and art are quite cheerful, readers old enough to know about the fate of the communities it depicts will find a sense of tragedy in the story as well.

Review Excerpt

Caldecott Medal Book

“Striking gouache, watercolor, and collage illustrations are chock-full of witty details—letters to read, proverbs on the walls, even a fiddler on the roof.”  School Library Journal

Connections

Sing-along with the song “I Had a Little Overcoat” as part of the story time program.

Other books based on Yiddish folk tales:

Zemach, Margot IT COULD ALWAYS BE WORSE.  ISBN 0374436363