New Shoes

Summary of Book

Ella Mae is used to wearing her cousin's hand-me-down shoes—but when her latest pair is already too tight, she's thrilled at the chance to get new shoes.

But at the shoe store, Ella Mae and her mother have to wait until there are no white customers to serve first. She doesn't get to try anything on, either—her mother traces her feet onto a sheet of paper, and the salesman brings them a pair he thinks will fit.

Disappointed by her treatment, Ella Mae and her cousin Charlotte hatch a plan to help others in their community find better-fitting shoes without humiliation.

Eric Velasquez' realistic oil paintings bring life to this story of a young girl's determination in the face of injustice. The book includes an author's note from Susan Lynn Meyer, discussing the historical context of the story and how the Civil Rights Movement worked to abolish unfair laws like the ones Ella Mae encounters.

A 2016 NAACP Image Award Nominee, and a Jane Addams Children's Book Award winner.

Author Biography

By day, Susan Lynn Meyer is an English professor at Wellesley College. There she specializes in Victorian and American literature and teaches students to write with clarity and power. At night and on the weekends, she writes books for children. Her novels, BLACK RADISHES and SKATING WITH THE STATUE OF LIBERTY, awarded Sydney Taylor honors, were inspired by her father's childhood as a Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied France and then as a war refugee in New York. Her picture book NEW SHOES, an NAACP Image Award Nominee, is about two girls in the pre-civil rights era who discover that because of the color of their skin, they aren't allowed to try on shoes in a shoe store--and about their triumphant response.

Sometimes Meyer's children's books are on lighter subjects. Her latest picture book, MATZAH BELOWSTAIRS, is about a family of mice who are unable to forage the matzah they need for Passover because the family above them has started keeping their apartment tidy!

Meyer's books have won many awards and honors. She lives with her family, including her opinionated cat, outside Boston. There she enjoys seeing baby goats and lambs born in the spring, smelling the aroma of boiling maple syrup mixed with wood smoke in sugar shacks, kayaking, visiting historic writer's houses, and searching every fall for a perfect, just-dipped caramel apple.

Illustrator Biography

Eric Velasquez earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and has illustrated over 30 children’s books. His first picture book “The Piano Man” by Debbie Chocolate, published by Bloomsbury won the Coretta-Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent, and in 2010 Eric was awarded an NAACP Image award for his work in “Our Children Can Soar” which he collaborated on with 12 notable children’s book illustrators. Eric also wrote and illustrated “Grandma’s Records” and its follow up “Grandma’s Gift” which won the 2011 Pura Belpre’ Award for illustration.

Recently Eric illustrated “Schomburg: The Man Who Built a Library” by Carole Boston Weatherford which earned five starred reviews and won the 2018 Walter Award from the WNDB organization as well as the SCBWI’s Golden Kite Award. In 2019 Eric wrote and illustrated “Octopus Stew” which has gathered rave reviews and is sure to make you laugh. One of Eric’s newest books is the much anticipated “Ruth Objects: The Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” by Doreen Rappaport, published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers and his latest title, “She Was The First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm” by Katheryn Russell Brown has just been published by Lee and Low Books.