PBS Teacher Resources - This webpage from PBS Kids presents a list of links that includes a teacher’s guide, flash cards, story pages, and related online games.

Joseph’s Pattern - This post from Storytiming, a children librarian’s blog, provides a 2-dimensional paper/cloth pattern for that will show a child reader/listener how Joseph was able to make smaller pieces of clothing from larger ones.

As such, there has developed on the Internet a deep, rich collection of supporting materials for parent and educators.īelow is just a small sampling of the thousands of Joseph-related Web links available to PJ families:

Originally published 1977, Taback’s Joseph Had a Little Overcoat has become one of the most well-known Jewish children’s books in North America. Taback to pancreatic cancer in December 2011, Jewish educators and parents have been remiss if not to recognize Taback’s contribution to the Jewish children’s literature. In this beloved Jewish folktale, Joseph’s old and tattered coat is recycled and takes the form of increasingly small articles of clothing. (Oct.Joseph Had a Little Overcoatis the popular Caldecott Medal Book written and illustrated by Simms Taback. With its effective repetition and an abundance of visual humor, this is tailor-made for reading aloud. 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''). Still, it's the bustling mixed-media artwork, highlighted by the strategically placed die-cuts, that steals the show. 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. The author puts a droll spin on his narrative when Joseph loses the last remnant of the coat-a button-and decides to make a book about it. A flip of the page allows children to peek through to subsequent spreads as Joseph's tailoring produces items of decreasing size.

This diverting, sequential story unravels as swiftly as the threads of Joseph's well-loved, patch-covered plaid coat. 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.

Joseph had a little overcoat book