The Foreign Service Journal, November 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2016 47 FOR YOUNG PEOPLE A Day in the Life of a Shoe Corrinne Callins, Callico Press, 2015, $14.99/hardcover, 34 pages. Written from the perspective of a little girl’s shoe, this book tells the story of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the “Little Rock Nine.” In 1957, Eckford and eight other African-American students were allowed to enter Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, but the school was closed the next year to pre- vent black and white students from intermixing. With colorful illustration by Argha Mondal and an ingenious literary conceit, A Day in the Life of a Shoe introduces younger audiences to an historic event in the United States during the civil rights era in a most delightful way. As the narrator remarks, “shoes of all colors, shapes, designs and sizes can come together and get along just fine.” Corrinne Callins is the daughter of FSO David Callins, who currently serves in Dubai. We’re All Alike and Different Leon Weintraub, Mirror Publishing, 2015, $9.99/paperback, 26 pages. Written for children ages 3-9, We’re All Alike and Different is an excellent starting point for explaining toler- ance. Beginning with the way people look the same (two eyes, 10 toes, 10 fingers) and different (eye and hair color, build, skin tone), and then shifting to how people think and feel similarly—we share pleasures, hopes, dreams and the joys of friendship—this book puts differences such as skin color into perspective for a very young audience. While it is easy to notice differences among people, a closer look will show we are not so different in our hopes and goals after all. Beginning with family, and then mov- ing outward to other people in our neighborhood and beyond, we see and appreciate the great diversity in humanity. Colorfully illustrated by Pritali Joharapurkar, the book is printed in large type for easy reading. Leon Weintraub is a former Foreign Service officer whose dip- lomatic assignments included Colombia, Ecuador, Nigeria, Israel and Switzerland. He also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia and did research for his doctorate degree in Sierra Leone.