Birdie, a girls who so badly wants to wear her mothers high heels and be just like her mom, begs and begs her mom to let her wear her shoes. She imagines all the wonderful things she would be able to do in them, but soon finds high heels no fun due to her scraped knees and sore feet. She decides she's not ready for grown up shoes and she likes her bare feet the best. ( )

Picked this one up on a whim from the thrift store and so glad I did. Great illustrations and I love the story. My princess dress loving daughter likes those darn kids dress up shoes so she could relate to this little girl wanting to wear Mommy's pretty heels only to find out they are uncomfortable and don't allow her to do all the fun things she loves to do. Pretty for a price... ( )

The illustrations were fun - especially if you have ever enjoyed dailycandy.com/ but the story was a little lacking. ( )

Birdie's mother is quite the fashion plate with her fancy shoes, sparkly jewelry and other stylish accessories. Birdie just knows if her mother will only let her wear those fancy shoes, everything will be so much better! Not only will she look fabulous but her dancing and her cartwheels will be so much more amazing. After several requests, Birdie's mother finally gives in, but Birdie soon finds that fancy shoes are harder to manage than she thought!

This would be great for those little girls who are obsessed with Fancy Nancy or the Pinkalicious books. Rim provides her own watercolor and collage illustrations that are full of fun textures. Rim keeps the textures and patterns from being overwhelming by completely cutting out backgrounds and leaving lots of white space. The few pages that are only text avoid boredom with their saturated pastel background colors that really pop against the other predominantly white pages.

I had an unexpectedly large population of boys at the preschool storytime I used this for, but they seemed to like it just as much as the girls; it went over quite well. It was definitely too long for my family storytime though since that leaned more heavily towards toddlers and babies than it sometimes does. You could actually see the younger kids losing interest towards the end. So I'd recommend this for Preschool up through about 2nd or 3rd, though I think the older you go, the more resistance you'll get from those who are anti-pink/girly stuff.

Used for Shine Those Shoes Storytime Preschool - 5/4/10 and Family - 5/6/10. ( )

A little girl borrows Mommy's high-heeled shoes,
and finds out that peep-toes and sky-high stilettos aren't quite as fun as they look! A very cute book with delightfully bright watercolor and collage illustrations. Perfect for both the "girlie girl" and the "barefoot girl." ( )