Shoes, villains, dogs, and tons and tons of fun in this delightful book by Liz Pichon.

I have read most of the Tom Gates books and while I enjoy them, because of the fun art and Liz Pichon’s fun writing style, I was a bit bored of the series. So imagine my delight when I saw she wrote something TOTALLY different. This time about shoes, and a mean shoe villain, and family. I just had to try it out, and I can tell you that this was just the best and the most fun!

Meet Ruby and Bear and Ivor, the first two are kids and brother/sister and the last one is their dad who is an amazing inventor and shoemaker. Really, this guy can make anything! But he is under contract with one of the worst people in the world and the one who controls the town, Wendy Wedge. There is a big competition coming and things are getting quite hairy with each day. And more fun and more exciting and more wow.

I loved seeing the kids try to help out their dad, try to make sure he is safe, later on there is even a big rescue in which the kids try to find there dad, but in the meantime find something that may be the rescue of everyone in this little town (which is, as expected from the big villain Wendy, even named after her).

The kids are awesome (not just for the above mentioned part, but also with other things, though I was shaking my head at what they did earlier in the book that caused a lot of bad things to happen and didn’t make me happy), but other characters that we see in this book are also well written. Like Bert, the only guy not under contract of Wendy and the only one who still has his own shoe store. Or Betty, who works with Ivor but is definitely not amused with her employer. Or Chelsea, Betty’s daughter.

The villain, Wendy Wedge, was well written. That is pretty rare. Sometimes I am just so frustrated with a villain I cannot read on. But with Wendy? I could. I was curious what her next elaborate plan would be and how many wedges did this girl have? We learn quite a bit about her, though there was one fact I saw coming for miles.

I loved reading about all the shoes, and the big show at the end was fantastic. Where do I sign up to get those shoes? Hello? Next to the fun show there was of course the big finale as Ivor, Bert, Betty, and the kids try to stop Wendy from doing any more. That part was also very exciting and I loved how it all came together.

I would love to see more of Sally’s (the mother) book and all the creations she made.

The book is also illustrated and I loved the illustrations. Oh, btw, was that Tom Gates near the end with the award show starting?

All in all, I could probably talk more about the amazing flying shoes, the annoying Walter, the epilogue which seems to promise more story, that people lived in actual shoeboxes (just a bigger more liveable size), someone who just seems neighbourly becomes epic, treat your minions with kindness or things will bite you in your butt, but let me just cut the review here and tell you all to read this fun, hilarious, shoe-tastic book.