What Can You Do With Only One Shoe?: Reuse, Recycle, Reinvent

by Simon Shapiro, Sheryl Shapiro, Francis Blake (Illustrator)

Overview

One can, two can. Who can? You can!
Using junk from the landfill site.
Rusty cans and wood and wire,
thrumming, strumming, day and night.

In this inventive new collection of verse, Sheryl and Simon Shapiro introduce readers to 13 everyday objects that have been ingeniously reimagined into something else altogether.

Color photographs of recycled objects are accompanied by lighthearted, jaunty poems in a variety of lengths and rhyming patterns. Kids will love identifying each reinvented item, and will marvel at how a shoe makes a great bird’s nest, how old tin cans make a guitar, or how a car can be transformed into a bed!

Complete with Francis Blake’s lively color illustrations, What Can You Do With Only One Shoe? will delight young readers while introducing the idea of recycling and repurposing in a new and innovative way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554516438
Publisher:	Annick Press, Limited
Publication date:	02/18/2014
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.12(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sheryl and Simon Shapiro are the husband-and-wife team who wrote the rhyming picture books Better Together, Slither, Slide, What's Outside, and, most recently the Shapes and Spaces series. They live in Toronto, Ontario.

Francis Blake's sharp-witted artwork appears in books, magazines, and advertising around the world. He illustrated Annick Press' recent revised edition of Nibbling on Einstein's Brain by Diane Swanson. He lives in London, England.

Editorial Reviews

2014-06-04
Readers learn how to “Reuse, Recycle, Reinvent” what some might call trash into treasures. Rhyming poems each introduce a single way to reuse/reinvent something: A toilet becomes a planter, the titular shoe morphs into a birdhouse, a (very large, nonstandard) light bulb houses a fish, and favorite jeans that are holey? They become a new purse. The most creative has to be a table supported by a pitchfork: “If you’re wanting to picnic on uneven ground, / where your table’s unstable or up on a mound, / stop and think! Be creative! The answer’s around.” While cans, wood and wire are both easily found and transformed into musical instruments, not all these projects use such common materials or are as simple to complete: Half of a boat turns into a covered bench, a car becomes a bed, and a grocery cart transforms into a chair. And although it’s neat to see a farmer’s new watering trough (an enormous tire) and a community’s new playground (an old ambulance anchors it), these are not projects that are likely to fire readers up to do similar things. Cartoon spot illustrations share space with photographs of the new inventions, and both are needed to make sense of the poems.This may spark a few imaginations, but its lack of directions and the difficulty level of most of the projects—not to mention its failure to impart reasons for reducing, reusing and recycling—make this one to skip. (Poetry. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews

In his lively illustrations of reusing, recycling, and reinventing, Francis Blake captures perfectly the rollicking rhythm of the Shaprios’ text. Creativity reigns as items from an old shoe to a classic car take on new identities in actual photographs, accompanied by verses tinged with humor and word play. A grocery cart is transformed into a lawn chair in “Supermarket Buggy Rap” and a retired rescue vehicle providers a comfortable play space as well as a super slide in “Playground Ambulance.” The story goes through thirteen verses. From urban streets to the farm, from the garden to the beach, there is a poem and an ingenious example of reusing, recycling, or reinventing to please every reader. Two concerns only with this little treasure: the absence of a table of contents creates a problem with finding a particular poem, and the lead verse includes some potty humor that subtracts some class from the otherwise delightful volume. Reviewer: Janice DeLong; Ages 6 to 10.

Children's Literature - Janice DeLong

08/01/2014
Gr 1–4—After looking at the cover art and title, readers may be surprised to open this book and discover a collection of poems, rather than the presumed kid-friendly how-to guide to reinventing and upcycling. Each spread showcases a unique use of discarded materials (such as a metal can guitar, jean purse, or shopping cart chair) with a corresponding poem. The simple, accessible poems often provide a touch of humor to keep readers entertained ("Sometimes it's quite dull/'til you're bombed by a gull/and you find you have bird/doo-doo right on your hull!"). However, there is no mention of necessary supplies or instructions to building one's own version. In addition, enlisting adult assistance or following safety guidelines is never suggested, despite highlighted activities that involve nailing shoes to trees, welding metal bike parts, or repurposing a pitchfork into a garden table. Some of the websites provided in the list of photo credits direct readers to places to purchase the photographed creations rather than providing how-to instructions. This title is first and foremost a book of poetry rather than a recycling activity book, but it could be used to initiate a discussion on reusing materials in nontraditional ways.—Meaghan Darling, Plainsboro Public Library, NJ

School Library Journal