Read, Read, Read, said the Baby: Whose shoes? A shoe for every job by Stephen R. Swinburne

I have mixed feelings about this quirky board book. It features a number of photographs of people wearing shoes, and then specific shoes, asking kids to guess who wears them.

The shoe questions include pointe shoes for a ballerina, rubber boots for a farmer, boots and protective clothing for a fire fighter, boots and fatigues for an Army National Guard, cleats for a soccer player, work boots for a construction worker, sturdy black shoes for a postal worker, black slip-ons for a chef, and pink, oversize shoes for a clown.

There are a couple darker-skinned legs in the mixed pictures. The ballerina and postal worker are white females, the farmer, construction worker, and chef are white males. The soccer player is a black male. The soldier and fire fighter are, I think females but it's hard to tell. They're both white. The clown is also white, but I can't tell the gender. A final picture at the end of the book shows kids dressed up in their parents (presumably) shoes. A white kid in a cowboy hat, Latino boy in construction gear, white girl with heels and a briefcase, and Asian boy in a medical uniform.

So, I feel like an effort was made at diversity but it was not wholly successful. Some of the pictures are confusing - what about plain black shoes says "chef" as opposed to postal worker? Many of them are identified by their pants or the equipment they're standing on or with, rather than the shoes.

Verdict: A nice idea, but fell short in the execution.

ISBN: 9781629796918; Published September 2016 by Boyds Mills; Borrowed from another library in my consortium