Caps for Sale
For an interactive Caps for Sale experience, including distance learning and fun activities, please visit CapsforSale.org.
Caps for Sale is a timeless classic beloved by generations of readers!
This story about a peddler and a band of mischievous monkeys is filled with warmth, humor, and simplicity and teaches children about problem and resolution. Children will delight in following the peddler’s efforts to outwit the monkeys and will ask to read it again and again. Caps for Sale is an excellent easy-to-read book that includes repetition, patterns, and colors, perfect for early readers.
More Caps for Sale, the first monkey sequel to Caps for Sale (published through Harper Collins), answers the question. The new book is based on story ideas from Slobodkina’s and Sayer’s imagination, with prior permission from Slobodkina. Intimate knowledge of the subject matter in Slobodkina’s paintings and illustrations supplied Sayer with a mental archive of source material from which to choose to build new illustrations for the sequel. Using Photoshop as a modern collage technique, Sayer created the desired scenes. Every tree, chair, lamp, building, cap, and, of course, monkey was produced using Slobodkina’s original art. Reflecting upon hours of conversations with Slobodkina on perspective and her choices in stylization, Sayer employed great care to develop each layout as the artist herself might have done. Through this posthumous story, Sayer awakens Slobodkina’s voice.
Reviews of More Caps for Sale can be found at:
Publisher’s Weekly: Caps for Sale Anniversary and Sequel
NY TIMES: More Caps for Sale
NEW RELEASES
RELEASED AUGUST 29, 2017 – Caps for Sale and the Mindful Monkeys
The New York Times bestselling and beloved Caps for Sale series by renowned illustrator Esphyr Slobodkina continues with the all-new release, Caps for Sale and the Mindful Monkeys!
Following More Caps for Sale, this funny and thoughtful read-aloud is inspired by The Elves and the Shoemaker. Here, the monkeys prove to the peddler that while they may be mischievous, they can also be very helpful.
Those playful monkeys who wore the peddler’s wares in Caps for Sale just won’t leave him alone. As he walks through the streets selling his caps, the monkeys follow behind him, and as he walks back home at the end of the day, they trail along too. All in step. The peddler is tired of their trouble, but when he asks his friend Essie for advice, she thinks he should give them one more chance before deciding they’re no good. So when the peddler must go out of town to attend to a sick friend, the monkeys have a surprise in store for his return, showing that they might just be more mindful than they appear.
A review can be found at:
Publishers Weekly: Caps for Sale and the Mindful Monkeys Book Review
A book signing and story presentation will take place on Saturday, October 21, 2017, from 2-4:30 p.m. at Rizzoli Bookstore in Manhattan.
NOW AVAILABLE: Children’s Activity Book!
The Peddler and his monkey friends are starring in their very own activity book! From counting to drawing, a maze, and a chance to write your very own story, this activity book is a great way to spend some time with these timeless characters.
Caps for Sale: The Musical
The Caps for Sale Musical Narrative Presentation goes beyond everyday storytelling.
Children become immersed in this presentation as the author portrays the characters of the monkeys and the Peddler through reading, acting and singing. Children are encouraged to participate as either monkeys in both stories through song, dance and mimicry or simply relaxing as part of the audience.
The production is simple, yet lively. And after the show questions are taken and everyone gets a chance to talk about what makes the Peddler different and special and how each of us is different and special.
A powerful and charismatic stage performer, Ann Marie Mulhearn Sayer spent over 25 years in the music and performance industry. Exploring all music styles, Sayer has composed and performed rock, cabaret, contemporary, music-theater and music-theater for children in a number of venues. Her composition, I am a Good Child, was chosen as song of the year by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements and she was invited to perform this – as well as other original compositions – in a concert for World Habitat Day in the 1990s. She toured extensively throughout the United States and Canada. She has also done studio work, voiceovers and radio commercials.
While studying at the University of Hartford, Ann Marie Mulhearn Sayer began an association with Esphyr Slobodkina. Originally hired to produce musical versions of Slobodkina’s children’s books, Sayer ultimately served as her personal assistant from January 1996 to July 2002. Although separated in age by over forty years, the women became fast friends. Sayer and Slobodkina found they shared a synchronicity in thinking: an out-of- the box approach to creative endeavors and problem solving.
