February 4, 2010
Larry Peterson - Slippery Willie's Stupid Ugly Shoes
by Phillip H. Tang
Willie is a young boy with slippery feet. His feet were so slippery that even his shoes would slip off his feet. There were special shoes designed specifically for Willie, except there was only one problem: they were ugly.Willie went to school with his new ugly shoes. All his classmates laughed at him. Even the principal and his teacher laughed at him. He was too embarrassed that he went home from school.
On his way home he noticed that the school building was laughing at him. Even dogs and cats and birds were laughing at him. He got home and even his mom was laughing at his ugly shoes. The whole world was laughing at him.
................Then he woke up and realized it was all a dream. When he went to school nobody laughed at him and actually thought his shoes were pretty neat.
First and foremost the illustrations are excellent. I love the paper and pencil sketches with pencil crayon coloring. It is very appropriate for a children's book.
I'm a big fan of alliteration. They are fun to read and flows very nicely off the tongue. This particular one was used very effectively:
Willie just slipped, slid and spun all over the placeThe whole "it was all a dream" thing kind of bothers me. If the author wanted to show that Willie was imagining things he could have shown that the people were actually laughing about other things. Not a big deal.
Although this book is a picture book, or more accurately a book with pictures, you would still want an older audience of say 6-8 years old reading it. It is in paragraph format and at times goes on with a full wall of text before the next picture. It would be too difficult to read for the younger ages on their own and too long to keep the attention of the kids if being read to.
If interested, the book can be purchased from the author's website in many formats including hard cover, ebook, kindle, etc. at http://slipperywillie.blogspot.com/
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