PETER PIGLET

Peter Piglet's life changes irrevocably when he chances upon a pair of golden shoes secreted under a pile of sticks, acorns, and blackbird feathers. Peter slips them on and goes about mastering the finer points of shoe locomotion--walking, skipping, climbing. He couldn't be happier as he drifts off to sleep that night, exhausted. Nor could he be sadder when he wakes up the next morning and the shoes are gone. One has been commandeered by a wrinkled old tortoise, who lost his home in a storm; now the inverted shoe serves as his golden palace. A blackbird has appropriated the other shoe to replace her nest, which was carried off by the wind, and now her babies chirp happily from their golden cradle. Peter loves those shoes, but he suddenly understands that they are being put to a greater purpose, a realization that brings him happiness. Rowe (The Gingerbread Man, p. 606, etc.) delivers his message straightforwardly, but without a cudgel. And as in his earlier works, he has a way with a paint brush, turning perspectives akimbo to spotlight characters in the compositions. The attention he pays to their expressions is highly entertaining.