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On Books

"Caps for Sale" has been in print for around 75 years, and it's a subversive masterpiece.

The adult, the central character, is a fool. He sells hats, but he stores them by stacking them in a long, skinny tower on top of his own head.

When the peddler goes to sleep, in a forest, monkeys descend and steal all the hats.

The peddler wakes up. He discovers the problem. He tries to use strong language with the monkeys. They simply repeat his words back to him. Finally, in frustration, the peddler tosses his one remaining hat to the ground. Having been trained to "ape" the peddler, the monkeys now relinquish all their hats.

I love the colorful illustrations, and I really love that no one learns anything in this book. The events are random and chaotic, just as in actual life. The writer, Slobodkina, emigrated from Russia, after the Revolution of 1917 made things unstable for her Jewish family. She is cited for having "pulled together imagery and objects into magnificent compositions, time and time again." 













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