Joseph Had a Little Overcoat

Title: Joseph Had a Little Overcoat
Author: Simms Taback
Publisher: New York: Scholastic, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-21697-4

Plot Summary: “Joseph had a little overcoat. It was old and worn.” So begins Simms Taback’s adaptation of the traditional Yiddish song “I had a Little Overcoat”. Joseph’s coat is tattered, so Joseph uses his tailoring skills to constantly recreate his favorite apparel into a progressively smaller form. Soon nothing of the coat remains. But that’s not the end! Joseph shows us that something can be made from nothing.

Critical Analysis: Reminiscent of the song lyrics, the rhythmic text and repeated elements make Joseph Had a Little Overcoat a joy to both read aloud and hear. The text’s predictable nature also makes it easier to appreciate the real magic of the book—the illustrations. Taback’s illustrations place the very poor tailor Joseph as part of an Eastern European Jewish community sometime during the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s—the very same culture from which we receive the song.

Using primarily watercolor and collage, Taback’s spreads are packed with details. Younger children will delight in giggling at cartoonish figures and in finding the photographic images in the collage. Older children, including adults, will be intrigued by all the cultural details—a fiddler on the roof here, a Yiddish magazine there.  However, the real excitement occurs with the die-cuts. Overlaying every other illustration with a die-cut creates a jacket from a coat, a button from a handkerchief, and all sorts of items in between.

The moral, “You can always make something out of nothing” is lightly presented, but multi-layered. Creativity and positive attitude will win the day! Joseph Had a Little Overcoat proves it.

Reviews and Awards:

2000 CALDECOTT MEDAL

Barbara Kiefer, chair of the Caldecott Award Committee, commented, "Vibrant rich colors, playful details, and skillfully-placed die cuts contribute to the books raucous merriment that takes this Yiddish folk song far beyond the simple words."

Linda Ludke for School Library Journal writes, “A book bursting at the seams with ingenuity and creative spirit.”

Publishers Weekly states, “With its effective repetition and an abundance of visual humor, this is tailor-made for reading aloud.” 

Music Video:
See Scholastic’s animation of the song using Taback’s illustrations. The score is authentic klezmer music of the Yiddish original.
http://www.simmstaback.com/Simms_Taback_Videos_-_Joseph_Had_a_Little_Overcoat.html

Related Lesson Plans:

http://learningtogive.org/lessons/unit410/lesson2.html

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplan.jsp?id=%20%20945

In the words of the artist:

            “Joseph Had a Little Overcoat is adapted from a Yiddish folk song and is a good example of yiddishkayt, meaning “Jewish life or Jewish world-view.” It embodies the values and struggles of life in the shtetl—the small villages where Jews lived in Eastern Europe. These were not big-city Jews, but families of farmers and tradesmen of mixed economic classes.”

            ---Excerpt from Taback’s Caldecott Award acceptance speech, see more at http://www.simmstaback.com/Simms_Taback_Caldecott_Medal.html

At the end of the book Taback includes some nice bonus features for the adults and older children. One is a letter explaining why he chose this particular song to illustrate and his feelings regarding the finished product. The other is the sheet music (tune only) to “I had a Little Overcoat”.

A question for you: 

People sometimes see Simms Taback in his illustration of Joseph. What do you think?

(images from pbskids.com and simmstaback.com respectively)

Review created for course 5603.21 at Texas Woman's University