- Hardcover: 236 pages
- Publisher: iUniverse.com (February 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0595505546
- ISBN-13: 978-0595505548
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,393,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
When Donald Gardner's parents tell him they'll be taking an exciting road trip through Kansas, he openly cringes. He is sure it will be a boring summer vacation.
But at one of their final roadside stops, they are approached by a poor woman offering to sell a strange item-a silver shoe. While Donald's mother is initially reluctant, she is smitten with the shoe and buys it.
Wanting to impress his classmates, Donald brings it in for show-and-tell when the new school year starts. His friends liken the shoe to something out of The Wizard of Oz, and his teacher agrees the idea is not farfetched considering author L. Frank Baum wrote about "silver shoes," not ruby slippers, which were strictly in the movie.
Donald is skeptical that the shoe is anything more than a relic, but when he accepts a dare from his two best buddies to try it on, frightening and incredible things begin to happen. And when he meets George Clarke, a reclusive man who has been in hiding for many years, Donald finds out there is a lot more to Baum's story than he thinks.
Join Donald as he unravels Baum's earth-shattering secret in Silver Shoes.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A modern day classic,
By
This review is from: Silver Shoes (Paperback)
When I was in grade school in the early 1970's, there was one author who utterly captivated me by her gift for telling her tales from the perspective of the children who served as her protagonists. This author was Wilson Gage (Mary Q. Steele). Gage knew just how much to tell without giving away the plot's great secret, yet made the immediate narrative too fascinating to skip to get to the end. She knew how adults and children interact--that the latter live in an entirely different plane of reality, one they unfortunately forget how to access with the onslaught of puberty and pop culture. Above all, she knew the complex emotional crazy quilt of childhood feelings, hopes, dreams, fears--how children assign power to objects which to the adults in their lives are inanimate and lifeless. If those adults only knew. Well, move over Wilson Gage. Paul Miles Schneider, in his first novel, has written a book about a boy's adventure which works not just for children but for adults, because it shows how often adults don't check in to a child's reality, his inner world that he is trained to keep out of sight, and it shows how much of that world still lives in even the most jaded grown up. In "Silver Shoes", Schneider takes the silver slippers of L. Frank Baum's Dorothy in his 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and frames them as talismans not of fiction but reality, lifting them off the page into every day American life, with all the ramifications - magical and otherwise - that that transfer entails. Schneider's masterful technique lends a tautness and mystery that will keep the book in your hands from first page to last. To reveal anything more about the plot would be to rob the reader of experiencing what to me was one of the most pleasurable reading experiences I've had in years--since reading the masterworks of Wilson Gage, to be precise. The book begs to be made into a film, but don't wait for Hollywood. "Silver Shoes" is a fantastic journey that has to be read to be believed.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews) 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book!,
By Danielle Maguire - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Silver Shoes (Hardcover)
I just finished this book and simply loved it! It tells a wonderfully creative and engaging story about the mysterious shoes from the Wizard of Oz. The characters were richly drawn and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next! This is a book that would appeal to younger readers as well as adults. A real page turner - I highly recomend it!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Long-time Oz reader reports...,
By Life-long Oz reader - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Silver Shoes (Hardcover)
What a fun, thrilling, fascinating book! From the opening chapters where those who have found the Shoes are pursued by threatening, ominous forces, and throughout the adventures of Donald, George and Anirbas, I couldn't put this down. It's an enthralling tale. Mix a child with FBI agents, utopian followers, Flying Monkeys, space portals and with the most powerful magical implement of all time -- the Silver Shoes of Oz -- and you have a gripping story that spins right off the page. Times you think you know what's happened, Schneider surprises you with the unexpected.The save-the-world mission is more consistent with Middle Earth, Narnia or something Harry Potter might serve up than a traditional Oz book, but devoted fans of the Oz book(s) will be pleased to see how Schneider has written an entirely fresh story that respects the original material. The author clearly knows Oz and Baum far more intimately than most, and he has no intention of meddling with the reality of that sacred fairyland. Plus those familiar with only the classic MGM film can embrace this without hesitation. Set largely in contemporary America, today's young readers will easily related to Donald and imagine themselves in his place. While the X-files factor is quite the adrenaline rush, it's still a kids' book -- not a Wicked/Was/Barnstormer sort of "Oz" novel written for adults. As an adult, I read it curious about this author's approach to his subject -- how would he explain the mysterious origins, power and post-Dorothy history of he Silver Shoes? It's been done before; would he do it better, or at least well? Yes! I happily recommend Silver Shoes, and hope Schneider has a sequel or two lurking in him.... 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Silver Shoes,
By Gary Dyer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Silver Shoes (Hardcover)
I read the book in one afternoon. I am not a fast reader and am usually so busy it takes me weeks to finish a book. I couldn't put it down. It was great. I found myself drawn into the story right away. It kept my interest and the charachters were very real. Being aware of the Wizard Of Oz, I really liked the fact that the whole story could be true, it could be fiction. Who knows? I guess it's up to our own imagination. Paul left it open for possibly more to follow, and yet you don't feel like you were left hanging. I think this will appeal to all ages and both male and female. Buy it, you will enjoy the experience. Tell others so that they can have a chance to enjoy it as well.
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