Frederick Lipp, illustrated by Jason Gaillard,
Running Shoes
Charlesbridge, 2008.

Ages 4-8

Sophy dreams of going to school but her circumstances are difficult: she lives with her mother in a poor village in Cambodia, a country where, traditionally, the education of girls isn't valued and most girls are kept out of school to help at home. To make matters worse, the nearest school is eight kilometers away.

After the census man visits her village and notices how Sophy admires his running shoes, she receives a surprise package. The pink running shoes she finds inside turn out to be a perfect fit - in more ways than one.

With Running Shoes, founder and president of the Cambodian Arts and Scholarship Foundation, Frederick Lipp (The Caged birds of Phnom Penh, Bread Song) has yet again succeeded in gently introducing children to serious matters - poverty and gender inequality in this case. Even if these things are mainly hinted at and mostly communicated through the illustrations, the combination of text and images makes the link between a lack of education and vulnerability clear.

Gaillard's appealing art conveys the heroine's resilience and optimism as she runs the eight kilometers of sharp rocks, jungle and winding roads that separate her house from the one-room school. She is the only girl in sight and the boys tease, "But you're a girl!" when she announces that she wants to learn to read and write. Her pink running shoes sit outside the classroom amongst the sea of identical blue and white flip-flops, an image of her courage and determination to better her life.

Sophy's thank you note to the "number man" when he next visits, written with a stick on the mud, illustrates what he could not have anticipated: "Thank you for the running shoes. Now I can read and write."

Readers of all ages are likely to be moved toward big and noble aspirations by reading this book.