The Hatmaker's Sign: A story by Benjamin Franklin

An interesting story within a story, Candace Fleming retells the tale that Benjamin Franklin told to Thomas Jefferson to spare his feelings when the founders were making seemingly endless changes to his original version of the declaration of independence. He tells the tale of the Hatmaker's sign, a story about a hat maker who writes his sign and lets everyone in town edit it until it is completely blank! The sign maker then leads him back to his original sign, implying that it was perfect just the way it was. A great story to share with new writers, because students need to learn that while editing is part of the writing process the best advice you can take is often your own.

A hatmaker designs a sign for his shop that he thinks would be perfect for his store window, but along the way, people tell him that he should change this and that until his sign is just a blank piece of paper. He eventually goes back to his initial sign. This book shows that sometimes your first idea is the best idea and that people will have criticisms along the way. If you are happy with your work, you don't have to take peoples' suggestions. Take pride in the work you have done.

A hatmaker designs his own sign. As he makes his way to the signmaker, he encounters numerous people who offer their advice concerning his sign. The hatmaker changes his sign each time an individual makes a suggestion and eventually ends up with a blank design. He then discovers that his sign was just right before he made all of the changes.

The book would be great to talk about advertisement, taking pride in work, self-confidence, and taking criticism.

This is a story about a story. The book begins just after Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence. He takes his version, which he thinks is perfect, to the Continental Congress for approval. When they start arguing over wording and phrases to leave in Thomas Jefferson gets embarrassed. This is when the story begins. Benjamin Franklin tells Jefferson about the hatmaker’s sign. In this story the hatmaker is deciding on a sign for his new shop but everyone keeps telling him different wording. In the end he realizes that his original wording was perfect for him. As a teaching tool the book offers an introduction to the writing and editing of the Declaration of Independence. It also could be used to talk about editing writing.

This picture book recounts a tale Benjamin Franklin shared with Thomas Jefferson to ease Jefferson’s hurt feelings after the Continental Congress edited his writing of the Declaration of Independence. The tale tells of a hat maker who just couldn’t get his shop sign right because everyone had an opinion to offer.

When Thomas Jefferson becomes discouraged with the process of editing the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin relates the story of a hatmaker and the sign that he wanted to put on his shop. This would be a great book to not only introduce young children to the historical characters and document in the story, but also to the writing process.

Biography:

In "The Hatmaker's Sign: A Story by Benjamin Franklin" retold by Candace Fleming Benjamin Franklin relates a personal story to a rejection of Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence. In the story, Franklin tells of a hatmaker who was discouraged and influenced to change, when in reality, his idea for a sign shop was the best. This anecdote only mentions Benjamin Franklin a few times; however, in the back of the book there is a short biography of Benjamin Franklin and his contributions to science. This book is most appropriate for grade levels 3-5. The science content about Benjamin Franklin is only briefly mentioned in the back of the book but this book would be a great introduction to how creative show more and innovative Franklin was. This, as mentioned before, would be a great way to introduce Benjamin Franklin to a class. Then, a science lesson about his inventions, and an activity that students could invent something, could follow. Overall, a great book! show less