Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback

Hanukkah ends today and do you know what happened? We missed our chance to do a Hanukkah picture book on the show (and I’ve one on order but it won’t come in in time). So, feeling guilty, I thought we should do a good Jewish children’s picture book classic. And to my horror, somehow it took us 207 episodes for me to realize that we didn’t do today’s book. Are you ready to hear us right a great wrong? Because it’s Simms Taback time! Yes, the man who designed the world’s first Happy Meal is here with a GOLD Caldecott Medal. “Look at how it gleams in all its goldy goldiness!” Kate digs deep into the Sholom Aleichem references and we both thoroughly enjoy how well Simms sticks that ending. Enjoy!

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Show Notes:

Here is Kate’s “Hannukah Hank”, who stands in her front yard right now:

Yeah. You know you want to hear the song they sang in the Weston Woods video (which, I should note, according to Kate is NOT the same tune as the one printed on the sheet music at the back of the book):

We like when a title page is as open and honest as this.

We’re also loving the Fiddler on the Roof references here.

Look at these wedding moves, oh ye people who can’t even do YMCA anymore.

When you know the illustrator is making references to actual people but you don’t know who those people are.

Why are all the townspeople here? Maybe Joseph’s falling pants were a bigger problem than we suspected.

Kate doesn’t select it as her preferred tattoo, but I would gladly sport this buggy-eyed Sigmund Freud any old day of the week.

It’s funny because it’s true.

I reference My Grandfather’s Coat, which is similar, by Jim Aylesworth, ill. Barbara McClintock:

Kate Recommends: Drawn to Life. Here’s a cute little preview:

Betsy Recommends: Encanto

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate