Product Description

Caps for Sale is a timeless classic, in print for over fifty years, and beloved by generations of readers. This easy-to-read story about a peddler and a band of mischievous monkeys is filled with warmth, humor, and simplicity. Children will delight in following the peddlers efforts to outwit the monkeys in this new, enlarged, and redesigned edition, and will ask to read it again and again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5324 in Books
• Brand: HARPER COLLINS PUBLISHERS
• Published on: 1987-10-31
• Released on: 1987-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780064431439
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Subtitled A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business, this absurd and very simple story has become a classic, selling hundreds of thousands of copies since its first publication in 1940. A peddler walks around selling caps from a tall, tottering pile on his head. Unable to sell a single cap one morning, he walks out into the countryside, sits down under a tree, checks that all the caps are in place, and falls asleep. When he wakes up, the caps are gone--and the tree is full of cap-wearing monkeys. His attempts to get the caps back generate the kind of repetitive rhythm that 3- and 4-year-olds will adore. (Preschool and older) --Richard Farr

Review
Good natured nonsense tale in text and pictures. The text is almost unnecessary as text and pictures tell the story of the peddler who fell asleep and had his whole stock in trade of colored caps stolen by the monkeys. And of how mere chance made him do the one thing that persuaded the monkeys to throw away the caps. (Kirkus Reviews)

About the Author
From an early age, Russian-born Esphyr Slobodkina was surrounded by parents and friends who were deeply interested in the arts. "Those who didn't practice," she says, "discussed art at great length." She recalls that fifteen to twenty people at the dinner table was not a party but a daily happening. Even during the Russian Revolution and before coming to live in the United States, she always found an inexhaustible supply of laughter in the "saga" of the family struggling for self-preservation.

At the age of 92, Esphyr's sense of fun and good humor still extends to family, friends, and art compositions. Although she continues to produce sculpture and collage, today Esphyr's primary focus is on overseeing the production of musical storybook cassettes of all twenty of her children's books.

Esphyr also recently designed a mini museum in Glen Head, Long Island, New York (through her Slobodkina Foundation), as a place where guests can visit and view more than 200 works of art, her handmade dolls and jewelry, as well as her complete collection of children's storybooks, including some of her original illustrations.

Customer Reviews

A true keeper
This adorable story is simple enough to read to infants under the age of one. By the time they are two, children can easily memorize it and begin to distinguish words on the page.

It is particularly delightful for young children, who can identify both with the peddler's nap and his anger at the monkeys in a tree, who have stolen his caps.

Altogether, the story is pure joy. Your copy is sure to wear out before your children reach the age of five, as ours did. Alyssa A. Lappen

You need this one if you teach K or 1st Grade!
Caps For Sale is a wonderful tale that students love to read. It is an ideal book for shared reading and offers opportunities for students to learn about the structure of a good story. Slobodkina's story of a peddler trying to sell his wares in a small town has a clear beginning, middle, and end. You need this one if you would like children to learn how to make predictions, recognize patterns, sequence events, and notice setting elements. This book is a "must have" classic in any K and 1st grade classroom.

Tsz tsz tsz.
A folktale fastforwarded to 1940. In this fine lighthearted little yarn, author Esphyr Slobodkina reinvigorates the folk tradition with a marvelous story. In it, a peddler looses his hats to a tree of 16 chattering monkeys and must find a way to get them back. There is no overwhelming complexity in the text of this tale, but sixty-some years after its original publication there is still great charm in its words. Accompanying the staid story is a series of brightly colored illustrations. The peddler seen here is not your classic workaday schmoe in dirty clothes and a five-o-clock shadow. He is prim and pristine. With a moustache like Hercule Poirot's, a smart black suit, and a pair of cheerful red spats he is a picture of competence and sterility. Which makes his eventual foot-stomping, fist-shaking temper tantrum at the mischievous monkeys all the more amusing. I was particularly taken with the monkeys response to the peddler's demands. All they say is, "Tsz, tsz, tsz". Who knew we shared this phrase with our simian kin? Slobodkina has created a precise little tale. Though she never says it, sixteen caps sit atop the peddler's head (his preferred method of peddling his wares, doncha know) and sixteen monkey pinch them. The combination of bright colors, funny monkeys, and the dapper little peddler man make this a real treasure of 1940s children's literature.