Baby Shoes

Baby Shoes

From School Library JournalPreS The only thing more fun than watching Baby get new shoes is seeing him get them dirty. As the story begins, a toddler and his mother are leaving a store with some High-jumping,/fast-running,/fine-looking/shoes! The boy leads his mother on a merry adventure across town where his white footwear gets covered in colored chalk, grass stains, plum juice, and yellow paint. Along the way, Baby and Mama exchange Uh-ohs! and Oh, nos! The story culminates in the diaper-clad youngster resplendent in Those/speckled, spotted,/polka-dotted,/puddle-stomping,/rainbow-romping,/go-go-going shoes, trying to flee his day-end bath. The smooth-flowing text contains wonderful repetitive phrases. The watercolor illustrations are warm and inviting and the expressions on the characters' faces are particularly delightful. A grand choice for one-on-one sharing, as well as for storytime. Linda Zeilstra Sawyer, Skokie Public Library, ILCopyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Baby loves his brand-new white shoes, taking them all over the neighborhood while his frantic mom chases behind him. But he just can't resist stomping through puddles, squishing fallen plums, and dancing in fresh paint. It isn't long before those white, high-jumping, fast-running shoes are speckled and spotted with every color of the rainbow. Dashka Slater's delightful, rhythmic text and Hiroe Nakata's jaunty illustrations are the perfect match for this playful tale of fun, sun, and fabulous shoes!From Booklist*Starred Review* PreS. Gleeful after choosing new white shoes at the store, Baby (actually a toddler) leads his pregnant mama on a merry chase. As they head home, Baby playfully explores the park, where grass, plums, fresh crosswalk paint, and more add their distinctive hues to his increasingly polka-dotted, / puddle-stomping, / rainbow-romping, / go-go-going shoes. In the text, loping lines of rhymed couplets are interspersed with staccato sections, followed by a refrain that reins in the pace: Baby says, 'Uh-oh!'/ Mama says, 'Oh, no!' / But those shoes just go, go, go. The verse may at first seem a bit challenging to read aloud, but the changing rhythm creates a pleasing pattern and gives listeners places to chime in. Setting a sunny tone for the excursion, Nakata's airy watercolor artwork sympathetically depicts an increasingly scruffy toddler and his tired but resilient mother. With a buoyant tone in both verse and illustrations, this book will be a fine addition to story hours and, given young children's affinity for shoes, a great conversation starter. Carolyn PhelanCopyright American Library Association. All rights reservedAbout the AuthorDashka Slater is the New York Times-bestselling author of The 57 Bus, which won the Stonewall Book Award and was a YALSA nonfiction finalist. Her fiction includes The Book of Fatal Errors which was an Amazon Best book of the Month, the picture book Escargot, which won the Wanda Gag Book Award; Baby Shoes; The Antlered Ship, which was a Junior Library Guild Selection and received four starred reviews; and Dangerously Ever After. She is also an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in Newsweek, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, and Mother Jones. She lives in California. dashkaslater.comHiroe Nakata has illustrated many picture books for children. Originally from Japan, she lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.