The Cobbler's Holiday or Why Ants Don't Wear Shoes
By Musharraf Ali Farooqi, illustrated by Eugene Yelchin
Roaring Brook Press; $16.95
34 pp.; ISBN-13: 978-1596432345

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

If you've ever wondered why ants don't wear shoes on all those feet they have, Musharraf Ali Farooqi's The Cobbler's Holiday or Why Ants Don't Wear Shoes offers kids quite an explanation.

Once upon a time, ants wore shoes. Lots of them. With six feet after all, and needing pairs for work, play, parties, and more, ants had piles and piles of shoes. Which was okay until they went to parties, wearing their walking shoes and changing into their party shoes. It always ended in chaos because the ants fought over whose shoes were whose; some less than honest ants even tried to leave their old, worn out shoes behind and make off with new pairs. The only cobbler in town was so busy keeping up with all of the orders for shoes, he worked day and night, with never a day off. Until one day he bit his finger by accident, instead of the leather he was preparing for shoes. The cobbler figured he was working too hard and decided to take the day off. His day of relaxation was so great, he decided to quit being a cobbler and spend the rest of his days traveling, pitching the entire community of ants into even more intense chaos as they realized he wasn't coming back. Who would fix their shoes and keep making new pairs? It wasn't until the arrival of a shoeless red ant that everything changed, showing the ants what was possible without their shoes.

Eugene Yelchin's colorful artwork is so detail-oriented: an ant sits on a pile of colorful shoes, the cobbler is pictured among all the unfinished shoes in his workshop, stylishly dressed ants perform a highly intricate dance at a party -- each scene is brought to life with expressive faces and body language. Especially for young readers, the artwork really drives home the story -- one page is devoted to picturing all fifteen pairs of shoes owned by one ant, for example. With stark white backgrounds, the colorful ants and their shoes are the primary focus and make for a tightly woven blend of story and art throughout the book.

Musharraf Ali Farooqi's picture book reads like a fable. The story is simple and vivid, demonstrating the ants' endless appetite for shoes through parties and lots of errands to run. The seemingly simple act of the cobbler taking off on a permanent vacation prompts all kinds of drama for the ants, both materially (everyone's shoes keep falling apart from the heavy use and there is no one to fix them) and socially (the stylish ants decide it's okay to wear shoes without heels, and then long skirts to cover their shabby shoes, setting the tone for the others). The Cobbler's Holiday is a great family read, an enjoyable tale that is entertaining as well as providing ample opportunity for conversation about how and why the ants behave as they do.