*Starred Review* Gleeful after choosing new white shoes at the store, Baby (actually a toddler) leads his pregnant mama on a merry chase. As they head home, Baby playfully explores the park, where grass, plums, fresh crosswalk paint, and more add their distinctive hues to his increasingly "polka-dotted, / puddle-stomping, / rainbow-romping, / go-go-going shoes." In the text, loping lines of rhymed couplets are interspersed with staccato sections, followed by a refrain that reins in the pace: "Baby says, 'Uh-oh!'/ Mama says, 'Oh, no!' / But those shoes just go, go, go." The verse may at first seem a bit challenging to read aloud, but the changing rhythm creates a pleasing pattern and gives listeners places to chime in. Setting a sunny tone for the excursion, Nakata's airy watercolor artwork sympathetically depicts an increasingly scruffy toddler and his tired but resilient mother. With a buoyant tone in both verse and illustrations, this book will be a fine addition to story hours and, given
young children's affinity for shoes, a great
conversation starter.
—Booklist >