Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams

Karen writes with equal passion in her chapter books and novels about real life problems faced by children in the United States loosely based on her own childhood and life with her four children. There she continued to write, explore the Southwest and learn Navajo weaving as an active member of the community. Most recently Karen has returned to Pittsburgh after living for seven years on the Navajo reservation in Chinle Arizona. She has been a volunteer for the Pittsburgh Refugee Center helping find homes for Sudanese and Somali refugees in the Pittsburgh area where she was inspired to write Four Feet Two Sandals and My name is Sangoel. She has taught writing at the graduate level at Seton Hill University and Chatham University and in several programs including the Institute of Children’s Literature.

Karen writes with an impassioned voice and deep respect for children living in developing countries, and her books capture the details of everyday life with naturalness and poignancy. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi, Africa, Karen also lived and worked in Haiti, the setting for her highly acclaimed titles CIRCLES OF HOPE and TAP-TAP. As poet Warsan Shire aptly puts it: “no one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark.” In Four Feet, Two Sandals, we realize that, despite the abject conditions of life in a refugee camp, dreams of a better life are the buoys that keep the spirit of refugees alive.Born in 1952 Karen Lynn Williams is the author of over a dozen books for children, including GALIMOTO, a Reading Rainbow Featured Book and one of the New York Times Top Ten Books of the Year. The girls share their dreams of a new home - a dream shared by many who’re fleeing adversity.

Through the interactions of these two characters, the readers are given a glimpse into the mundane and dramatic moments in the life of refugees. The two main characters–and by extension, the readers–don’t lose sight of the sandals. What are the two characters supposed to do when each needs the sandals? They come up with a plan and stick to it to the end.Īs the story unfolds, you notice how it builds up around these sandals. The other sandal? Meet Feroza, another 10-year-old girl. The first line captures with authenticity the humiliation refugees face as depicted in the way the relief workers (even if well meaning) throw used items at the crowd around the truck. She and her mother fled the war in Afghanistan where she had lost her father.

This is achieved with language describing how a young girl “raced barefoot to the camp entrance where relief workers threw used clothing off the back of a truck.” We meet Lina who is in a refugee camp in Pakistan. With concise language, the opening line puts readers in an unfamiliar territory and engages them viscerally. By Karen Lynn Williams & Khadra Mohammed / Illustrated by Doug Chayka

Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams