MUSHI SUSHI SOCCER SHOES

A children’s chapter book with a Christian theme.

Simpson’s debut follows the misadventures of Alexis Brackenbury, a second-grader who has a knack for getting herself into sticky situations. Her current problems begin when she’s helping a younger boy retrieve a pet turtle. She loses her new soccer cleat in the process—shoes she wasn’t even supposed to be wearing. When she later tries to retrieve the shoe, a big, vicious-looking dog has beaten her to it. Alex attempts to cover up the fact that she only has one of her new soccer cleats and begins telling a series of lies to her mother and other family members. Alex is shocked and a bit scared at how easy it is for her to lie to her mother and others. She’s also alarmed by the fact that with each new lie, her problems only seem to grow. A disastrous soccer practice in cowboy boots, a soggy mishap with a washing machine, and missing dinner because she’s too busy looking for the soccer cleat she shoved up the gutter pipe—all the result of that first lie. When she finally tells her soccer coach the whole ugly story of why she doesn’t have her soccer cleats, she feels relieved, and she knows what she must do next. Her parents are pleased that Alex has come forward on her own to finally tell them the truth. The text is accompanied by some black-and-white illustrations, which unfortunately don’t always complement the text. In one instance, the text reads, “Mother was wearing a tank top over a pair of stretchy sweat pants. On her feet were dance boots”; yet the illustration shows a woman in a cardigan sweater and Mary Jane shoes. Elsewhere, the illustration for Alex knocking over a clothes-drying rack holding her mother’s sweaters instead shows a shelf of laundry detergent falling off the wall. Overall, the illustrations might confuse young readers. Nevertheless, the story is well-developed with touches of humor and suspense to keep it moving swiftly along, and the moral is clear without being too heavy-handed.

Teaches Christian values in a format likely to entertain young readers.