Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Peddler, Some Monkeys and Their Monkey Business is a 1938 classic children's book by Esphyr Slobodkina

Esphyr Slobodkina

Esphyr Slobodkina was a popular artist, author, and illustrator, best known for her classic 1940 children's book Caps for Sale.-Biography:...

. It's a sly take on the saying, "Monkey see, monkey do

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Monkey see, monkey do is a saying that originated in Jamaica in the early 18th century and popped up in American culture in the early 1920s. The saying refers to the learning of a process without an understanding of why it works...

."

Summary

Based on a folktale, the story follows the life of a mustachioed cap

Cap

A cap is a form of headgear. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head and have no brim or only a visor. They are typically designed for warmth and, when including a visor, blocking sunlight from the eyes...

 salesman who wears his entire stock of caps on his head — twenty-one in all, as depicted on the title page (including his own cap, and 4brown ones not on the title page). He strolls through towns and villages chanting, "Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!"

One day, the peddler sits down under a tree to take a nap, with all his wares still on his head. When he awakens, all the caps but his own are gone - stolen by a troop of monkeys, who now sit in the tree wearing them. The peddler orders them to return his caps, scolds them, and yells at them, while the monkeys only imitate him. The peddler finally throws down his own cap in disgust - upon which the monkeys throw theirs down as well, right at his feet. He stacks the caps back on his head and strolls back to town, calling, "Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!"

Popularity

It is Slobodkina's best-known work, as it has sold more than two million copies. Although the graphics are modest by current standards, Caps for Sale is a popular read-aloud book, because its repetitive text permits children to speak the lines and thus join in the reading experience.

It won a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award

Lewis Carroll Shelf Award

The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was started in 1958 by Dr. David C. Davis with the assistance of Prof. Lola Pierstorff, Director Instructional Materials Center, Univ. of Wisconsin and Madeline Allen Davis, WHA Wisconsin Public Radio. Awards were presented annually at the Wisconsin Book Conference...

 in 1958.

Today Caps for Sale is issued by HarperTrophy, a division of HarperCollins

HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...

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In addition to book format, the story is also available in audio format, as are other works by Slobodkina.