The Purple Coat

Product Description

The Reading Rainbow programs are designed to encourage children to read by transporting them to exciting, real-life settings. The series introduces kids to interesting new people and places, explores social and cultural issues, and offers a close-up look at the world around them. Its dynamic, fast-paced, colorful animation and hip music entertain and reinforce these experiences, and help children embrace positive reading habits, skills and attitudes.

Theme: It’s great to try something new…even if you’re not sure that you’ll like it.

Every year Gabby’s grandfather, a tailor, makes her a new blue coat. Despite her mother’s reminder that “navy blue is what you always get,” Gabby begs her grandfather to make her a beautiful purple coat.

LeVar takes viewers to the Fashion Institute of Technology and to New York City’s garment district to explore the fascinating world of clothing design, and then gets a coat made especially for him. Viewers meet an artist who creates caricatures of people out of papier-mâché.

Author: Amy Hest
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Field Trip Segments:

• New York City Garment District – A montage of Garment District sights. New York Fashion Institute of Technology – LeVar visits the Fashion Institute of Technology and learns about how clothes are designed and created
• Paper Mache Caricatures – Steve Hansen demonstrates creating caricatures of people and animals with paper mache

Review Books: Pablo Picasso by Ibi Lepscky; The Goat in the Rug by Charles L. Blood and Martin Link; How a Book is Made by Aliki