One Red Shoe

An adult narrator, a newspaper photographer, delivers a pained recounting of the aftermath of a school bus bombing (a note explains that Gruss’s debut picture book is “based on impressions of the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip”). Although the photographer is seen in the book’s opening and closing scenes, the majority of Krejtschi’s b&w images have the feel of on-the-scene photojournalism, with pictures of children playing hopscotch beside ruined buildings and of paramedics rushing an injured boy to a hospital. The boy, whose single red basketball shoe provides a hit of color, becomes the photographer’s focus (the nine-year-old, Kenan, has sustained a grenade hit to the leg, and the unspoken truth appears to be that Kenan’s other shoe isn’t all he has lost). The book’s gritty realism breaks as the photographer’s camera display seems to show Kenan standing up and playing with a basketball, a fleeting moment of wishful thinking. It’s a difficult, upsetting story of the violent unpredictability of life in a war zone, one that will undoubtedly lead to discussions in families and classrooms. Ages 10–up. [em](Feb.) [/em]