I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A tale of how the shoe was invented. It was an okay book, unique. The pictures were bright and colorful. I think kids will enjoy it.

This was a great little book that addresses responsibility and consequences. I really love these types of fun stories that have a deeper meaning and lesson to them.

A quirky story about an easily distracted, clumsy king who stubs his toe while taking a walk because he wasn't paying attention to where he was going. After a sleepless night of pondering, he decrees all the ground in the kingdom must be covered with leather, so no one will stub their toes again. This, of course, is a bad idea, and the people soon complain. His ministers finally tell him he should learn to be more mindful of where he is going, and maybe cover his feet with leather instead of the ground, thus inventing shoes. In the author's note following the story, Nance explains how she got the idea for the tale from an 8th century poem by a Buddhist monk, and also gives the actual information about how shoes were first made. The lessons in the text touch on mindfulness in the aspect of paying attention to one's surroundings, dealing with feelings of frustration when bad things happen, and overreacting to events. The illustrations are bright, colorful, and engaging, with lots of detail, and highlight the story well.

#BarefootKing #NetGalley

A cute story that encourages kids to not overreact. My kids loved the prose and thought the king extremely silly. The illustrations were so fun and fresh.

I absolutely love how this book's format is rhyming. Especially for the reader's target age. Rhyming makes this book easier for kids to read, which is fantastic! I love how this book teaches children lessons they can actually use: problem solving, mindfulness, acceptance, and responsibility!

The Barefoot King – rhyming gives it a fairy tale quality

Art: different shades of people in world.

There is message about mindfulness and stuff for kids to get into.

Read the authors note!

The Barefoot King is a fun fable that tells about the invention of shoes. I loved how the King came up with the idea to cover everything with leather after he badly stubbed his toe. It is there that the kingdom comes to realize that the King's well-intended solution actually has ended up leading to a series of even more complicated problems! Through trial and error, the King and his trusty advisors end up coming up with the amazing solution of shoes!

This is supposedly a book about mindfulness, but I actually found that part of the story kind of forced. The basic gist is that there's a kingdom where everybody goes barefoot. One day, the king stubs his toe. He freaks out and orders that the whole kingdom be covered in leather so it won't happen again. But the leather makes problems of its own. The crops can't grow. The leather gets too hot in the sun, and very slippery in the rain. So the king freaks out again and goes to his ministers. One of them gives him some speech about mindfulness and awareness before coming to the point: they should wear leather on their feet instead.

The whole mindfulness thing just feels shoehorned in there. And what was the king supposed to do? He was paying attention to his surroundings when he was "distracted" by the birds. Our brains can't pay attention to a bunch of things at once (which is why there are so many videos out there of people walking into poles while texting). I think I would have preferred it if the story had either just had the fable aspect (how shoes were invented) or had made the king distracted by something other than the natural world (because we're always telling kids how important it is to notice and appreciate nature; do we really want to be telling them to keep their heads down and miss the beauty of the world because they might stub their toe?).

The illustrations... Well, I sort of like them and I sort of don't. I don't particularly like the style. But I love the lush colour palette. So my reaction there is kind of mixed.

Overall, this is fine if you're looking for folktale-like stories about how things came to be. In that respect, it works. As far as teaching about mindfulness, though... I think it kind of missed the mark.

The less than observant Barefoot King stubs his toe on a rock one day and has the brilliant idea to cover the entire kingdom in leather to prevent further occurrences.

I enjoyed the illustrations in this book, they're very vibrant and detailed. The story itself is interesting, mainly because I never really though about when people started wearing shoes.