For young travel-lovers: ‘Ruby Red Shoes Goes to Paris’ by Kate Knapp

Ruby Red Shoes is a series of beautifully illustrated books for very young readers by Australian author and artist Kate Knapp.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ruby Red Shoes Goes to Paris, a special edition has been released.

Ruby is a white hare with special shoes that love to take her to new places.

She travels to Paris with her grandmother, where they meet up with her Babushka’s brother and his grandson Felix. Ruby and Felix explore Paris, where they see, hear, feel, smell, and taste everything that city has to offer.

Ruby is an intrepid traveler and records what she experiences in her special travel notebook.

I love the sly nods of humour which will appeal to older people perhaps reading the story aloud to a littlie, such as the airline (‘The Flying Hare’) they travel with, or the carrot flavoured toothpaste Ruby packs for her trip.

The pictures are the type you can get lost in, rich with detail and evocative of Parisian sights. It’s a fabulous introduction to traveling and to the City of Love. The text expands youngster’s vocabulary: Ruby is ‘fizzing with excitement’, she climbs the ‘narrow, twirling staircase’ to their apartment, Babushka must ‘tussel with the old keys and creaky lock.’

Ruby Red Shoes and the others in the series are perfect to plant seeds of wonder and exploration in emerging readers. The special anniversary edition is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in October 2023.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.