Age range 3+
Grandma has oodles and oodles of shoes!
Walking shoes, dancing shoes, fancy and
plain, Grandma has a shoe for every occasion. So why are these scratched and
dusty old ones so special?
Through read-along, rhythmic text and colourful images of all types of
shoes, we follow Grandma from her home country, wearing her ‘roaming shoes and
weary shoes’, on a boat with her ‘salty but free shoes’ and into her new life
where she wears ‘tiny shoes, school shoes, red shoes and blue shoes’. Yet her
memories remain with the ‘scratched and scuffed shoes’ in the cupboard — the
‘weary little pair that led her here’. This story of migrating to a new life is
told gently through the delightful, vibrant illustrations and the theme of
shoes that dance their way through this wonderful book.
The story of refugees in Australia is told in a non-fiction section at
the back of the book, looking at the mass arrival of Vietnamese by boat in the
1970s as an example.
This sensitively told story encourages children to understand the plight
felt by refugees, in the past and today, and to appreciate the contribution
that refugees have made in shaping this nation.
