What Can You Do With a Shoe?

What Can You Do With a Shoe?. written by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers. illustrated by Maurice Sendak. 1955. 32p. New York: Simon and Schuster. 

Author Website: none

Illustrator Website: http://www.harpercollins.com/author/microsite/?authorid=12708

Medium: pen and gouache

Awards and Honors: none

Audience: 3 and up

Annotation: 
A playful ode on the imaginative possibilities of household objects.

Personal Reaction:
As if to make it perfectly clear what this book is about from the very beginning, What Can You Do With a Shoe? is dedicated on the first page- "for fun". What follows is a silly and playful ode on the imaginative possibilities of household objects, charmingly illustrated by Maurice Sendak. 

In rhyming text, the book presents new ways in which to use common objects- a hat is filled with pickles, becomes a resting spot for an octopus, and adorns a horse's head; a chair turns into a cage for a bear, a canoe, an airplane and a train (which goes on a journey to the moon)- and the most accepted uses of these objects are given a nod, as well. Sendak's illustrations- a boy and girl dressed in their parents clothes and playing make believe- are pitch-perfect.