Check Out The Shoes

Guest reviewer Lindy Michaels of BookStar in Studio City writes about PETE THE CAT…. I LOVE MY WHITE SHOES (HarperCollins, $16.99, ages 3-7) by Eric Litwin with art by James Dean.

Pete, the cat, loves his very white shoes and sings about just how much he does. Now all join in! “I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes!” But, oh no! And horrors, too! One day he steps into a large pile of… strawberries and his shoes turn… RED!

Most cats in this situation would go meowing back to their momma, but not Pete. He goes with the flow, now singing about how he loves his red shoes. Sing it loud! “I love my red shoes, I love my red shoes, I love my red shoes!”

And you guessed it, Pete keeps stepping into piles of different colored “things.” Yikes, even mud! But no catastrophe will crumple this cat.

Children will love to guess what Pete steps into next, as they sing along with him. Will his shoes ever turn white, again? Open this ‘colorful’ book and find out!

The very versatile Lindy Michaels aims to inspire young minds through children’s literature. Lindy owned L.A.’s first children’s bookshop, OF BOOKS AND SUCH (1972-1987) where she did storytelling, taught drama to children, had art and poetry contests and the like. According to Lindy, “It was truly a ‘land of enchantment.” She also spent years lecturing on realism in children’s literature at colleges in the state. For close to five years Lindy has worked for Studio City Barnes and Noble (BookStar) in the children’s section and does storytelling every Saturday at 10:30 a.m.