Baby Shoes

Slater, Dashka. 2008. Baby Shoes. (Board Book) Bloomsbury.

I love this board book. I do. Baby Shoes is the story of one boy and his shoes during the course of a day. (Well, the book doesn't say it's all in one day. But it doesn't say it's not all one day either. But it's not a big deal either way.) White shoes. The baby has white shoes. Any guesses on how long they'll stay all new, white, and pristine looking? Baby Shoes is a fun, rhythmic book. This is how it starts, "Baby's got some brand-new shoes, white as light, stripe of blue. He passed over all the rest, chose the ones he liked best." And here is just one of the examples of how baby's white-shoes end up not quite so white:

Mama and Baby take a walk.
Baby brings some colored chalk.
Uses red to draw a rose
and some red loops on the toes
of those white high-jumping
fast-running
loop-de-looping
shoes!

Baby says "uh-oh!"
Mama says "Oh, no!"
But those shoes just go, go, go.

It's fun. It's playful. It's rhythmic. It's repetitive. It's a good thing.