The Zoo’s Shoes

It's the board book with strings attached!—and the perfect gift for preschoolers. Die-cut in the shape and size of a child's sneaker and featuring four sets of colorful laces threaded through the sturdy board pages, The Zoo's Shoes is the only book of its kind: a hand's-on guide that's a delight to read, yet functions as a practical learning tool.

Lynn Brunelle, author of Pop Bottle Science and Camp Out!, has two children of "shoe-tying" age—the age when tying your own shoes marks one more significant step toward independence. This book makes it all easier, whether giving kids a place to practice their skills again and again, or giving parents the help they need to teach this curiously complicated task. It begins with Bunny trying to show the other animals in the zoo how to tie their laces, and then explains in illustrated step-by-step the basic "bunny ears" method of making and tying loops, referring to the book's color-coded laces. Readers help the animals—the zebra, the giraffe, tiger, crocodile, and leopard—tie their high-top sneakers:

Zebra's shoes are black-and-white.
She didn't tie them very tight.
Would you tie them please?

Slip-ons and shoes with Velcro have their place, but there's nothing like a child's feeling of Eureka! the first time he or she ties those pesky laces.