Several complicated issues for children are nicely resolved in Little’s book, her first for the I Can Read series. Emma is shy, and she hates to read aloud in class. But when a new family moves in next door, Emma’s mother sends her over with a pie to welcome them and to meet their daughter, Sally, who is Emma’s age. Emma is frightened and doesn’t know what to say, but she notices that Sally’s winter boots are bright red, just like her own. Plucking up her courage, she tells Sally that their boots are magic. Both girls enter into the pretend game, and use the magic to make a snowpile into a mountain for climbing, or to make themselves “invisible.” When Sally joins Emma’s class, she encourages Emma to use the boots to make her brave in reading aloud, and it works. Come spring, Emma’s parents present her with a jump rope with red handles, just like Sally’s, so the magic will go on. Clear watercolors fill the energetic lines of the illustrations, with their sweet round-headed figures: Emma’s peach face with straight brown hair, and Sally’s chocolate face surrounded by masses of curls. Shyness, friendship, and little brothers are all encountered and adroitly dealt with, as the girls move from winter “into a magic spring.” (Fiction. 5-8)
