Franny Hall, fourteen and crippled in 1950s Ohio, endures teasing because of her awkward gait and clunky shoes. In a dream-come-true turn of events, renowned shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo offers to make shoes for her if she'll come to Italy. The book's middle-class Ohio setting is unobtrusively authentic, as are the interactions among such realistically flawed characters as Franny and her beautiful Danish mother.

Gr 5-9 Franny lives with her mother, Margaret, who is Danish, and her father, a pediatrician. In 1950s Ohio, she knows that Easterbrook's residents are judging her mother, who is beautiful and carefree. She knows that they are also judging her; due to a birth defect, her left foot curls in, and she has always had to wear big, ugly orthopedic shoes to correct her way of walking. After a particularly embarrassing episode at her school's Valentine's Day dance, Franny simply locks herself in her room, too mortified to go to school or be seen. She blames her mother for the incidenttoilet paper stuffed inside more stylish shoes to make them fit unceremoniously trails out of said shoes, but her mother has another idea up her sleeve. Margaret decides to write famous shoe designer Salvatore Ferragamo to ask him to create a last so that Franny may have beautiful shoes forever. Signor Ferragamo agrees, and she and her mother make the trip of a lifetime to Italy. It is there that the girl discovers her true self with the help of her mother, Signor Ferragamo, and a boy named Filippo. This is a sweet, touching story about differences, cruelty, and finding out who you really are. Franny's voice is authentic, and readers will experience, through her words, what it's like to feel so very different from everyone else. Traci Glass, Eugene Public Library, OR