Cary Fagan has taken Nikolai Gogol’s famous Russian (long) short story “The Overcoat,” historically revised it by adding a happy ending, and turned it into a nice little picture storybook for children. The original, obviously conceived in bitterness and despair, tells of a poor government clerk who spends all his money on a badly needed new overcoat only to have it stolen. He succumbs to a chill, and dies unloved and quickly forgotten, but returns as a ghost to claim his precious overcoat.

In Fagan’s version of the classic, the protagonist is a poor, young Russian boy called Gogol who is an excellent copyist. At the office, Gogol has an enemy in the form of an older bully who resents the boy’s skill and frequently harasses him. In an especially cold Russian winter, Gogol is forced to spend all his savings on a new overcoat. But what a coat! It is the tailor’s masterpiece. It is stolen off his back but surfaces on that of the office bully. Eventually, young Gogol is able to reclaim his coat with the help of his dog.

Although the story is appealing, both text and illustrations have a serious flaw. Gogol is described and pictured as being “so much smaller than the others that he had to sit on a fat book to reach the top of his desk” while his tormentor is described and depicted as very stout. The latter couldn’t possibly have fit into Gogol’s coat! Moreover, the coat was so admired by Gogol’s fellow workers that one wonders why the boy had to prove his ownership. Children who are often more perceptive than adults, especially visually, are sure to notice these discrepancies.