Shoes Books

My children (ages 6 and 8) really enjoyed the book "Haiku on My Shoe" when we read it aloud together. It is short enough to be read in one sitting, yet has a chapter book style that young readers will appreciate. The author has a real gift for making the children in the book come alive and the situations portrayed made me remember the real challenges and joys of being a kid in elementary school. The book communicates a great message about reaching out to others with kindness and overcoming social barriers to develop friendships. The book has the added bonus of teaching about haiku and oragami. My children were eager to follow the directions included at the end for making a snowflake and an oragami bird. Make a cup of hot cocoa and find a cozy spot to enjoy this simple, yet engaging story!

As one of the authors of this book, I would like to point out that the book doesnt exist now, nor did it ever. There was a time when Bantam was about to publish it, but the company was sold and all elements were sent back to me without ever printing it. I advise you not to order this book; your money will eventually have to be returned. I delight in seeing that it moves up and down the sales listing, though.

Trasko defines the subject of her study as "... only the most influential creations, as well as particularly inventive and unusual footwear. The focus here is on high fashion, with relatively little attention to working-class or middle-class shoes, which deserve their own study." And the day that we see a glossy book about those shoes will be the revolution. The reader should be aware the "quite a few fetish models are depicted, for they are among the most awe-inspiring shoes of their era ... ." I don't criticize their inclusion, but adults might want to flip through and decide if they want to explain to little ones why some of the women are oddly dressed, or naked except for boots. The reader should also be aware that shoes are generally limited to English, French, Italian and American.

As a woman who chooses her shoes almost entirely for comfort, this is about as close as I care to get to wearing most of them, but I must admit that they are sometimes gorgeous objects. It is frustrating that so little design effort is put into practical shoes: just because I like to be comfortable doesn't mean that I don't appreciate attractive stitching and clever color combinations. Trasko quotes shoe-designer Robert Vivier as saying that shoe design is "a sculptural problem in which the center is always a void." Generally speaking, I find that craft is better than art if one is going to actually use the thing. Trasko is quite aware of the tension here: as much as she loves high-fashion shoes, she is not blind to the foot problems that extreme styles cause, or the inhibiting effect such shoes have had one women. She celebrates the opportunity to switch among different styles.

The book draws upon many sources: advertising, design drawings, and what appear to be museum shots. As a result, although most of the book is in color, some are in black-and-white if they were shot before color became common. The pictures are generally large enough to show the details. They are placed so that almost all of the detailing, types of heels, for example, and all the designs discussed are illustrated. The text is generally in chronological order with significant detail about changes in design, i.e., the stileto heel. In some cases, pictures of the clothing fashionable at the time is included. My one suggestion for improvement would be to have more pictures like this (publishers just love lengthening books!) Althea Mackenzie's Shoes and Slippers: From Snowshill, one of the World's Leading Collections of Costume and Accessories of the 18th and 19th Centuries did a effective job of this using very small pictures: not a lot of detail, but one gets some sense of the overall effect. I found the text relatively succinct and very clear. There is some discussion of major designers and manufacturers, as well as changes in methods of production.

The book includes a table-of-contents, notes, a bibliography and an index. There is a mistake in the table of contents: the photographic credits are on page 131, not 128.

Both beautiful and informative.

This wonderful book reminds adult readers and young children of what an epic odyssey it can be for a child to search for his or her shoes, especially when it is done with a hero of such mythical proportions as a grandpa! Joan Blos's writing is great as usual, while the art work by Anne Boyajian is superb, engaging to child and adult alike. The cover flap says that this is Boyajian's first children's book. We can only hope for many more!

I first read this wonderful book quite by accident: it was all that was at hand at the moment, twenty-some years ago.

Then, while vacationing in a famous quinta in Portugal a dozen years ago, there this book was in the library. The guestbook of the Quinta da Bacalhoa revealed that Elaine Sanceau was a visitor at the very place some years before. Other tie-ins to Prince Henry made the second read of Henry the Navigator more meaningful: The Quinta da Bacalhoa was built by King Manuel in the 1500s. Manuel the Fortunate, who dispatched Vasco da Gama on the voyage of discovery to India, built the quinta for his mother. It later came to be owned by the son of the first and greatest Portuguese governor of India, Afonso de Albuquerque. The palacio was built on land that was a hunting preserve for King John I, father of Henry the Navigator.

I have visited the remains of Prince Henry's "university" at Sagres and gazed seaward from the high cliffs overlooking the Atlantic, much as Prince Henry must have done a thousand times, watching for the return of a ship, a ship that might or might not return.

What settings could give a good work of history more sparkle? Elaine Sanceau wrote a marvelous account of the life of Prince Henry. Quite appropriately, it's a history of the reign of King John I, his several sons, and their adventures and misadventures.

The tragic and bloody consequences of the curious will left by John I, which resulted in the assumption of rule by his second wife's son rather than one of his own are described in chilling detail.

Sanceau's "Henry the Navigator" isn't in print, but the book was popular in its day and is not hard to locate on the used market. Well worth the effort, too.

A fabulous book of inspirational text, pictures and working drawings for the blacksmith. The book is one of the best for the blacksmith working to recreate the look of the old west. The photographs are beautiful in detail. The working drawings of actual construction drawings are a great aid in determining the workings to create your own projects. One of my all time favorite books on ironworking!

This book will inform longtime residents and newcomers alike. From the early indian tribes to modern Holland as we know it today, this book is very well written and ILLUSRATED w/ vintage photos.

This book left me wanted to read more. Well-written and told from a personal point of view.

This is the story of a horse and her lady who wear fancy, rather than practical things. The horse wears high-heeled shoes instead of regular horse shoes and the rider wears a cumbersome riding habit. The lady is also rather shy, which comes across as haughty.

Caught in a rainstorm, horse and rider are mired in the mud and to their acute embarassment, have to be rescued by a kindly neighbor. Utterly humiliated at first, they rethink their lifestyle, abandon their impractical gear, and become friendly with the neighbor.

The story is fully illustrated with colorful pictures.

I have purchased 4 of these books from Amazon's Used Books as I want each of my grown children to have this book in their collection. It is the most informative book on the market and unfortunately is now out of print.