The Shoe Bird

The Shoe Bird is a 1964 children's novel by Southern writer Eudora Welty. The novel tells the story of a parrot in a shoe store, as he talks to other birds about shoes.^[1] Welty, who had never written any children's literature before, wrote it to satisfy a contractual obligation with her publisher Harcourt Brace and to pay for a new roof on her house.^[2]

First edition (publ. Harcourt Brace)
Cover art by Beth Krush

An orchestral ballet was composed by Lehman Engel and performed by the Jackson Ballet Guild in 1968.^[2] A 2002 choral piece was also commissioned by the Mississippi Boy Choir and composed by composer Samuel Jones.^[3]

Reception

Reception of the novel was mixed, with critic Nancy Hardgrove calling most reviews in major publications "cordial but restrained".^[4] However, reception amongst children's literature commentators was largely negative.^[2] Kirkus Reviews described the novel as uneventful: "Practically no action occurs during the lengthy discussion, which consists almost entirely of a stream of witticisms, many of which are irrelevant."^[1] The review concludes wryly "the overly wordy result is so obscure that readers are likely to want to leave dictionaries as well as shoes to the birds."^[1]