Caps for Sale

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina has been featured on Reading Rainbow and is currently on their website book list (pbskids.org/readingrainbow/). This story was one of my favorites as a child. I used to read it over and over. When I saw it on the library shelf I just had to take it home and review it from a teacher's point of view. Caps for Sale is a picture book about a peddler who sells caps. One day, when sales are slow, he decides to take a nap under a big tree. He wakes up to find that a bunch of mischievous monkeys have stolen his caps and put them on their heads. The peddler becomes angry and demands that they return his caps at once. After taunting the man for a bit the monkeys finally give them back. The peddler piles the caps back on top of his head and walks back into town calling, "caps for sale!"

This book is perfect for early readers and is level K on the Fountas and Pinnell leveled reading book list. The words are in large print and there are few sentences on each page. The pictures are simple but cute, especially the one showing the monkeys in the tree wearing the caps. Caps for Sale would work great for a drama activity. Two or three students can volunteer to narrate, two students could share the role of the peddler, and the rest of the class can be the monkeys. As the narrator reads, the peddler and the monkeys will act out the story. For example the narrator reads, "You monkeys, you, he said, shaking a finger at them, you give me back my caps. But the monkeys only shook their fingers back at him and said, Tsz, tsz, tsz." The class can also have fun making the caps for their presentation using construction paper in the colors specified in the story: gray, brown, blue, and red, to integrate art. This story is also useful for conducting a sequence lesson. Give the students construction paper cut into the shape of caps. They will glue story strips, in sequence order, onto the caps.

I loved Caps for Sale when I was a child and I know the students will as well.