Aileen Friedman

This is a story of a tailor and his three sons. All three help him and he hopes one day they will become tailors. The Archduke needs 3 cloaks and 3 dresses made so the tailor has each son make a cloak while he makes the dresses. Two of his sons make great cloaks, one of them even makes 2 cloaks. But Misha makes a cloak out of circles, representing the blue oceans, green meadows, yellow sand of deserts, and red routes between far away places. Misha wanted to travel the world and his cloak show more represented it. The tailor realized when he saw Misha's cloak that his son should travel and not be a tailor. The next day the tailor and his two other sons fix the cloak that Misha has make so that he can wear it when he travels. This would be a good book to use in math. It incorporates shapes, patterns, and geometry. show less

The town tailor had three sons, Ivan the oldest wanted to be a tailor just like his father and work side by side with him. Alex the middle son wanted to work as a tailor with his father also. The youngest, Misha was different, he spent his day looking over maps and dreaming of far away places and lands that he would like to go see. One day, the tailor had an order so big he did not think he could fill it alone so he told each of his three sons to make a cloak for the Archduke and to show show more their work to him. They each fulfilled this task, Ivan used rectangles, Alex used squares and triangles, while Misha used circles, making it unusable because of all the wholes. Proud of all three of the boys, the tailor praised each for their work and pointed out that Misha’s would not make a very good cloak but that it was obviously time for his youngest son to travel the world. While Misha slept, the tailor and his two older sons took Mishas cloak of circles and transformed it to a cloak of hexagons for Misha to wear on his travels.

Cute story, Misha shows determination, he does not enjoy the work like his brothers do and yet he does his best for his father. The tailor is a kind man and understands the sacrifices that Misha is making and wants his young son to be happy, so he lets him go with a special cloak that has been fashioned with love and is now useable. The kids enjoyed me reading this story to them, they liked seeing the pictures of the colorful cloaks the boys made and seeing the father understand that it was harder for Misha than it was for his brothers to do the work at the tailors shop. They found it sad that the younger brother left, but was happy he was leaving to do what he wanted. Great pictures, good story, the back of the book has learning ideas about shapes, math, and other activities to help reinforce some of the subtle learning concepts of this book. show less

This book is a good example of a realistic fiction book. This is a narrative that presents a true depiction of life in present day. Readers will be able to imagine themselves or people they know encountering similar situations. It allows them to experience a different lifestyle without living it. The plot of the book smoothly develops. It is obvious when the son Misha creates a cloak that isn't appropraite for the archduke they must figure out what to do with the cloak and Misha. The show more conflict is resolved has the tailor and his other sons fix the cloak and give it to Misha as they send him out to explore the world. I would use this book in an intermediate classroom. The type of media used is watercolors. show less

A well told tale of three brothers who work for their tailor father. While two aspire to follow in the dad's business, the other has dreams of something more. While his tailoring skills are not great, his vivid imagination is revealed to his father who decides to set him free to travel the world. The older brothers would help encourage this by creating a special cloak for him to take on his journey.