Shoe Magic - Softcover

NIKKI GRIMES's acclaimed body of work for children includes Talkin' About Bessie, a 2003 Coretta Scott King Author Award honor book. She is also the recipient of the 2006 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Ms. Grimes lives in Corona, California.

Gr. 2-5, younger for reading aloud. "The shoe rack / Is stacked / With promise, / With dreams / Waiting to wake." Each poem in Grimes' latest collection uses a different type of shoe to explore a youngster's pride of accomplishment and hope for the future. A ballerina talks about her scuffed ballet shoes "tough enough . . . to strike a stubborn pose"; a young runner longing for fancy footwear realizes "It's not the shoes / that do the runnin'. / It's the feet." The poetry is uneven, mixing tightly rhymed couplets and loosened rhythm and rhyme with occasionally forced results; many poems work better out loud. But the voices convey a joyful purpose as they describe the hard work of the present and dreams about the future. The bright, foot-centric artwork, brimming with fanciful, stylized shapes, plays up the diverse speakers' exuberance and energy, though the pictures work best when paired with a poem on a white background. Then the words have more room to create their own images. Young ones struggling to express their own experiences in art and sports will find inspiration here. Gillian Engberg
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