Shoe-La-La!

by Karen Beaumont, Leuyen Pham (Illustrator)

Overview

Meet four girls who love shoes: SHOE-LA-LA!

"Shoes with zippers, Shoes with straps,
Shoes with buckles, Shoes with taps."

Prance from page to page in search of the perfect pair of party shoes. Girls of all ages will love to go on a shoe shopping expedition with these four friends, from "fuzzy boots for when it snows" to "ballerinas on our toes." The girls try on every shoe in the store, but "eeny, meeny, my, oh, my [they] just don't know which shoes to buy." With some feathers and glitter, a little bit of glue, and a LOT of imagination, the girls come up with the best shoes of all!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545067058
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/01/2011
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	152,560
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 10.60(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Karen Beaumont is the New York Times bestselling author of I AIN'T GONNA PAINT NO MORE!, illustrated by David Catrow. She is also the recipient of the Geisel Honor for MOVE OVER, ROVER! and three ALA Notable Book citations. As a little girl, Karen loved her tan cowboy boots best of all. She now lives near the beach in Capitola, California, and has traded in her boots for flip flops. She has two daughters who love shoes and a cat named Jake, who runs around barefoot most of the time.

LeUyen Pham is the New York Times bestselling illustrator of GRACE FOR PRESIDENT, by Kelly DiPucchio, as well as Julianne Moore’s FRECKLEFACE STRAWBERRY books and her own BIG SISTER, LITTLE SISTER. She is quite the shoe lover herself, and she can be found traipsing about in her Mary Jane shoes or knee high boots in San Francisco, California, where she lives with her family. You can visit her and her shoes at www.leuyenpham.com.

Editorial Reviews

"Party dresses, party hair.../ Need new party shoes to wear./ Emily, Ashley, Kaitlyn, Claire!/ Let's go find the perfect pair!" Four young gal pals (who are also conveniently unaccompanied minors) wreak havoc at the eponymous shoe store, a boutique run by a mustachioed man who proves no match for this enthusiastic quartet. When they still come up empty-handed (footed?) after turning the boutique upside down, the budding fashionistas turn savvy frugalistas, creating fabulous decorations for the shoes they already have. The premise inspires mostly literal, listy descriptions from Beaumont (Doggone Dogs!): "Shoes with zippers,/ Shoes with straps,/ Shoes with buckles,/ Shoes with taps"). But Pham (Bedtime for Mommy) carries the day. Flying her girly flag proudly in pages dominated by pink, peach, and purple, she gives each of her characters an entire repertoire of divaesque emotions and outfits (along the way, these "Glamour Girls" channel everyone from brides-to-be and flappers to figures like Annie Oakley, Jem, and Audrey Hepburn), and makes palpable the adrenaline rush that only a great retail experience can provide. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Four little girls are on a search for the perfect party shoes to go with their party dress and hair. After trying on every shoe in the store in a frantic search to pick the perfect shoe, and leaving a mess behind them for the shopkeeper, they decide that the perfect party shoes are the ones they make themselves. From cover to glitter-dipped cover, the overly marketed stereotype of the little girl who loves clothes, shoes, and to be overall fancy is far from subtle. Though the illustrations, the majority of which are based on bright pink or purple backgrounds, do more to encourage this stereotype than the text, phrases such as "Fancy ribbons, frilly lace, Shoe-la-la! We love this place!" do their major part as well. A rhyming text seems a meager attempt to make interesting what is otherwise merely a shallow storyline about shopping for shoes. The small redeeming feature of the otherwise gender biased story is in the anti-commercial idea that making something yourself is better than buying it. For the child who truly loves to play dress up, it's not necessary to suppress their interest, but try other reads such as Hat by Paul Hoppe, in which the clothing becomes a vehicle of imagination, or the Olivia books by Ian Falconer, in which there is more to life than clothes. Reviewer: Carly Reagan

Children's Literature - Carly Reagan

PreS-K—In another frothy paean to nearly every little girl's inner fashionista, a quartet of young girlfriends dash impulsively to a local store in search of perfect party shoes. (No parents ever appear on the scene, but a small leashed dog accompanies them throughout and offers amusing comic relief.) Simple, rhyming text describes their visit to "Shoe-la-la," where a dignified, mustachioed salesman waits on them hand and, er, foot as they try on a seemingly infinite variety of styles. "Fancy ribbons, frilly lace. Shoe-la-la! We love this place!" At day's end, the girls have shopped 'til they drop—the beleaguered clerk is flat on his back under a mountain of shoes—and still can't make up their minds. Decamping to one of their homes, they pull out four pairs of decidedly age-appropriate little girl shoes from a closet (all flats, no stilettos) and set to work gussying them up with assorted ribbons, beads, and other craft supplies. The girls' own considerable creativity saves the day—and their feet—as they set off for their party. The sparkly jacket is an irresistible draw, depicting the girls vamping in dress-up clothes and high heels, as are the humorously expressive, cartoonlike illustrations rendered in full-color with lots of girl-pleasing pink and purple. Pure fun, with a practical message, this title will appeal to the legions of "Fancy Nancy" fans and not sit on any shelf.—Kathleen Finn, St. Francis Xavier School, Winooski, VT

School Library Journal

What happens when you turn four party-bound girlfriends loose in the Shoe-la-la boutique? "Emily, Ashley, Kaitlyn, Claire! / Let's go find the perfect pair!" And so begins the search. Beaumont introduces readers to an almost infinite variety of shoes—buckled, bowed, tap, laced, rainbow-striped, leopard-spotted, sandals, boots, shoes for cowgirls and rock stars—in rhyming verses that sometimes falter in the rhythm. In the end, the indecisive foursome leave the store empty-handed, a mountain of shoes and an exhausted shoe salesman in their wake. Once home, the creative juices start to flow, and they embellish their shoes with bows, feathers and glue to fashion their own unique styles. Pham's multicultural cast of characters is highly imaginative. Each girl has her own sense of both self and style, and while all are little girls, they definitely have a touch of glamour about them. Though lacking the more detailed story lines of the Fancy Nancy series, this outing, with its glitzy cover, is likely to appeal to her fans as well as to the creative side in every budding shoe connoisseur.(Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Reviews