Caps for Sale (book)

Hello there. I am a book. When you open my cover, a world of bright colors pops out to say hello. You will see a man walking down a long road. What is on his head. It is a very tall, wobbly tower of hats. He has so many hats. There are gray caps, brown caps, blue caps, and red caps. They are all stacked up so high, reaching for the sky. My name is 'Caps for Sale', and I have a very silly story to tell you.

My storyteller was a wonderful artist named Esphyr Slobodkina. She made me a long, long time ago, in the year 1940. She did not use paint like other artists. Instead, she took colorful paper and carefully cut out shapes. She glued them together to make the pictures inside me. She made the man with the hats, who is called a peddler. She made a big, leafy tree for him to rest under. And she made some very silly monkeys. In my story, the peddler takes a nap, and the monkeys sneak down from the tree to try on all his hats. I love when children sing the peddler's song with me: 'Caps. Caps for sale. Fifty cents a cap.'.

For many, many years, children just like you have giggled at my story. They laugh when the monkeys copy everything the peddler does. They shake their fists just like him. They stamp their feet just like him. Grandmas and grandpas who loved me when they were small now read my story to their own grandchildren. I get to share my colorful hats and my silly monkeys with new friends all the time. I hope my story shows you that even a grumpy day can have a funny and happy ending. Some stories are so much fun that we want to share them with everyone, forever and ever.