Where My Feet Go

When Little Panda wakes up in the morning, he is ready for adventure. Where will his feet take him as he travels through the day?

Birgitta Sif’s endearing quirky little panda is the archetypal toddler. His world is that of the child as he walks down the street, through the park, the sandpit and back home to bath and bed. This may be ordinary to adult eyes but to a child’s imagination it becomes a forest, an ocean, a desert waiting to be explored, splashed through, shuffled across. The simple text presents this child’s view as little panda addresses us directly. Not a word is out of place as panda’s feet trample, tiptoe, shuffle, fly through the day. Sif’s cool palette creates the perfect atmosphere, allowing the mind to move seamlessly between the real and the imagined. Throughout, carrying the attention across each page, yellow moon boots remain the focus of each spread. Their importance is immediate as we meet them waiting neatly as we open the book. However, at the end they lie discarded – feet do not need boots to carry one through dreams.

Just as Emily Gravett’s Monkey and Me juxtaposes the real world with the imaginative, so Birgitta Sif creates a narrative that can move beyond the page, inspiring young imaginations to see the world with different eyes and to play. Outstanding.