Shoe Baby

This splendid rhyming nonsense story beginning ‘There once was a baby/ Who hid in a shoe’ elicited a round of applause and cries of ‘read it again’ from my large audience of three- and four-year-olds. The baby uses that same shoe as sailing boat, car, plane, tea party venue and bed, goes to sea, visits town and zoo, flies with the birds, entertains royalty and has an amazing dream, greeting all those he encounters with his newly accomplished, ‘How do you do?’ But his dream is interrupted by howling, stamping and stomping, sobbing and sighing culminating in a grand reunion of giant (Papa) with shoe, and giantess (Mama) with Baby – a family together once more. That baby is just adorable – such spirit and joie de vivre; these qualities are reflected in both the words and pictures of this mother/daughter partnership.