Week 9: Indian Shoes

• Week: 9
• Book Title:  Indian Shoes by Cynthia Smith
• Book Cover Image:

Copyright (2002) Harper Collins Children's Books

• Book Summary:  This is a series of short stories about Ray, an orphan being raised by his Grandpa Halfmoon.  In one story he brings all of his money he has saved in a jar to a junk store to buy his grandpa a pair of moccasins.  A librarian (!) offers the shop owner a few dollars more than Ray and gets the moccasins.  Ray offers her some authentic Indian-worn shoes (his sneakers) in trade for the moccasins and gets a gift for Grandpa Halfmoon.
• APA Reference:  Smith, C.  (2002).  Indian shoes.  New York, NY:  Harper Collins Children's Books.
• My Impressions:  Here in Montana we have an initiative where all students will be taught about Native Americans and especially the Montana Tribes.  While Indian Shoes is not a Montana Indian book, it is a good example of modern Indian life.  We have been fighting the false image of Indians today being the same as Indians in the 1600s.  Books like Indian Shoes give our Native students good role models and a sense of normalcy.  As an educator, I am always on the lookout for books with strong characters that are of Native American ancestry.  I will be putting this book on my list.  My favorite story is the one where Ray's ring-bearer tux pants are missing and he wears his grandpa's pants down the aisle.  
• Professional Review:

Indian Shoes

Publishers Weekly ( April 01, 2002; 9780060295318 )

Ray Halfmoon, a Seminole-Cherokee boy living with his grandfather in Chicago, is at the center of Smith's (Rain Is Not My Indian Name) slim collection of six tales. In the title story, Ray tries to take the edge off Grampa's homesickness for his native Oklahoma by buying him a pair of Seminole moccasins, which the two spy in an antique shop. But when he arrives at the store, a librarian offers the shopkeeper more money for the shoes than Ray has to spend. The boy then trades the woman his own hightops for the moccasins (which, says a grateful Grampa, "put me in the mind of bein' back home") and the woman displays the sneakers in her library, labeling them "Cherokee-Seminole Hightops." In other selections, the duo cares for neighbors' pets on Christmas Day, Grampa finds a solution to the dreadful haircut he gives Ray on the day of a big baseball game and the two share a special moment while fishing at night. Though the author affectingly portrays the strong bond between grandson and grandfather, the narrative bogs down with flowery or overwritten passages (e.g., "Ray's and Grampa's breath puffed cloudy as they trudged next door to the Wang home. In the driveway, Mrs. Wang's VW Bug waited to be freed from the snow like a triceratops skeleton embedded in rock"). Kids may have trouble sticking with this collection. Ages 7-10. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Review (2002, April 1).  [Review of the book Indian Shoes by C. Smith].  Publishers Weekly. Retrieved from Bowker booksinprint.com.

• Library Uses:  This is an excellent book to add to a Native American unit.  I also think it would be cool to have students bring in shoes for a writing project like, "Where did your shoes take you this summer?"  These stories could be put into a book to keep in the library for future classes to read.