Four Feet, Two Sandals feature

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This is a tender inspiring story of resilience, friendship, creative problem-solving, and peacemaking set in a refugee camp in Pakistan. After weeks of privation and the arduous journey walking out of Afghanistan to escape the fighting, great excitement fills the camp upon the arrival of boxes of donated used clothing. A pair of lovely yellow sandals with blue flowers tumbles out of the mix. Two different girls grab one sandal each. After a couple of days, Feroza gives her sandal to Lina with resignation saying, “What good is one sandal?” but Lina proposes instead sharing the sandals! Four feet, two sandals! A friendship grows up as the joint ownership of the sandals draws them together. There are lots of angles to explore at home or in a First Day School class, especially finding a middle way as a key peacemaking strategy. The book has a warm ending as Lina’s family is released to go to America and the girls decide to each keep one sandal to remember the other one by. They plan to share the sandals again in America. Other themes to touch along the way if they resonate with your exploration: population movements caused by war, the hardships of refugee camps, the hopes and difficulties of immigration to the US, the power of small acts of peacemaking.

Author: Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed

Illustrator: Doug Chayka

Publisher: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Age Group: 4 to 5 years, 6 to 8 years

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TopicsHome, Home Religious Education, Peacemaking