Book Report: Her Right Foot

20. Dave Eggers, with art by Shawn Harris, Her Right Foot (2018) (7/24/18)

This is a picture book. I love picture books: you can read them out loud while eating dinner and still finish them in 20 minutes! (That's what I did this evening, hence: two book reports in a single day!) This one—well, Dave Eggers can probably get anything published; he's got the cred. But I'm glad he did, because it gave Shawn Harris his first publication, and his art is really nice, rendered with cut paper and ink.

The book offers up a few choice facts ("This is a factual book"), such as: the Statue of Liberty, designed by one Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was assembled in Paris in 1884 and was up for a year before she was disassembled and transported to what was then Bedloe's Island; she is 150 feet tall and stands 305 feet above the water; she was brown (copper) for about 35 years before she turned green; she weighs 450,000 pounds and "wears a size 879 shoe." And she is moving.

That movement is what the focus on her right foot is all about: she's on the go, welcoming people fleeing from oppression to this land of the free. (I will refrain from political commentary here, except to say: I suspect Eggers had criticism in mind when he pitched this project. And good on him, and good on his publishers for giving him the green light.)

The text is sweet, though the book sort of just . . . ends. It does end with a (brief) celebration of immigrants to this country, so there's that.

I liked this book. I'm glad Dave Eggers is established enough to have gotten the go-ahead. I'm glad Shawn Harris did the art.

Here are a couple of spreads from the end (where immigrants are featured), as well as a trailer video about the book. Enjoy! I did.