Jimmy's Shoes: The Story of Jimmy Choo, Shoemaker to a Princess

by Patricia Tanumihardja, Derek Desierto (Illustrator)

Overview

A picture book biography of the shoemaker Jimmy Choo, tracing his life from his father’s workshop in Penang to the runways of London to the halls of Kensington Palace.
 
On the island of Penang, Jimmy Choo is born into a family of shoemakers. At his father’s side, he learns to make all kinds of shoes—loafers, stilettos, slippers, and more.
 
After learning all he can at home, Jimmy immigrates to London, where he can study shoemaking by day and English by night. Nothing comes easy for newcomer Jimmy, but he works hard until he can launch his own business. At his Lucky Shoes, Jimmy specializes in shoes made just for the customer. Before long, he starts to make waves in the London fashion scene. One day, he gets a call from a very special customer—Diana, Princess of Wales, wants him to design shoes just for her. And the rest is history!
 
From author Patricia Tanumihardja and New York Times bestselling illustrator Derek Desierto Jimmy’s Shoes: The Story of Jimmy Choo, Shoemaker to a Princess is a fabulous and engaging picture book biography about Jimmy Choo that is sure to inspire!
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647003470
Publisher:	Abrams
Publication date:	08/08/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	31 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Born in Jakarta to Indonesian Chinese parents and raised in Singapore, Patricia Tanumihardja has been a food writer and cookbook author for close to two decades. She has also developed recipes for Highlights High Five magazine. Tanumihardja is the author of Jimmy’s Shoes and Ramen for Everyone. She lives in Washington, DC.

Editorial Reviews

Desierto, who has experience in television animation, contributes a series of vividly colored, dynamic illustrations that will help children engage with Choo’s story. An attractive picture-book biography.

Booklist

Desierto, who has experience in television animation, contributes a series of vividly colored, dynamic illustrations that will help children engage with Choo’s story. An attractive picture-book biography. —Booklist

From the Publisher

2023-05-09
An immigrant cobbler’s neatly stitched poverty-to-prominence rise.

Young fans of fashion footwear will likely be more dazzled by the arrays of haute couture pumps strewn through the later pages of Desierto’s illustrations than by Tanumihardja’s wooden account of how Jimmy Choo, a shoemaker’s son of Chinese descent from the Malaysian island of Penang, moved to London, leveraged a “strong work ethic” to learn and refine his shoe design and manufacturing skills, and slowly built a distinctive brand. Her description of his career-altering breakthrough meeting with Diana, Princess of Wales, is typically low-key: “He worried what to wear, what to say, and what to do. His mother gave him this advice: Be as presentable as possible.” Thanks, Mom. Again, it’s the illustrations coming to the rescue—portraying Choo enthusiastically posing with racially diverse groups of fellow students, customers, and fashion models on the way to that climactic royal fitting (the first of many to come) and, finally, proudly, with two typically extravagant examples of his wares. An afterword goes over his career (again) in somewhat more specific but still sketchy detail. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A superficial tribute, memorable chiefly for those remarkable shoes. (source list) (Picture-book biography. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews