Indian Shoes [Hardcover]

What do Indian shoes look like, anyway? Like beautiful beaded moccasins...orhightops with bright orange shoelaces?

Ray Halfmoon prefers hightops, but he gladly trades them for a nice pair of moccasins for his Grampa. After all, it's Grampa Halfmoon who's always there to help Ray get in and out of scrapes -- like the time they are forced to get creative after a homemade haircut makes Ray's head look like a lawn-mowing accident.

This collection of interrelated stories is heartwarming and laugh-out-loud funny. Cynthia Leitich Smith writes with wit and candor about what it's like to grow up as a Seminole-Cherokee boy who is just as happy pounding the pavement in windy Chicago as rowing on a take in rural Oklahoma.

“Indian Shoesis about belonging to family and community, helping neighbors, and sometimes feeling different but most times knowing who you are in the world.”“A very pleasing first-chapter book from its funny and tender opening salvo to its heartwarming closer.”“Shoesis a good book for any elementary-aged reluctant reader, and a necessity for indigenous children everywhere.”“This book ably springs Ray Halfmoon free from the paint-and-feathers representations of American Indians.”“The stories’ strength lies in their powerful, poignant evocation of a cross-generational bond and in the description of the simple pleasures two charming characters enjoy.”“This is a book so permeated with affection that many readers will just bask in the warmth.”