Put your shoes on & get ready!

In this anecdotal picture book, Georgia's first Black senator revisits his childhood, offering takeaways that young readers can step into. As a boy, Warnock sometimes resists his father's daily call to "Get up! Get dressed! Put your shoes on and get ready!" Slipping on his dad's boots instead of his own prompts this guidance: "You've got to put the right shoes on for the work you're meant to do." His dad models this, working on weekdays and preaching on weekends: "During the week, my father lifted broken cars, and on Sundays... he lifted people." Inspired to become a preacher himself, Warnock realizes "I didn't have the shoes for that job yet," but grows into them through college and adulthood, becoming senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, once led by Martin Luther King Jr. Foregrounding portraiture and images of figures' footwear, Grooms's illustrations have the sweep of murals, portraying characters of varying abilities and skin tones, and communicating Warnock's purpose-driven efforts. Ages 4--8. (Jan.)

Georgia's first Black senator urges readers to get up, get dressed, and find the right shoes for what they're going to do. Warnock offers a shoe-based view of his own experiences--donning boots each summer to help his dad haul old cars and church shoes on Sundays to hear him preach, high-tops to play basketball, and pastor and activist shoes as a grown-up. Though he became a pastor at the same Baptist church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, he notes with humility that he "never thought it was [his] job to walk in" those shoes but to find his own, and now, after his election, he wears lace-ups for his job of helping people. Fondly watching his own children clomping around in his shoes, he tells them what his father told him: "You have to put on shoes that fit your feet--shoes for the job you're meant to do." Often taking ground-level perspectives to focus attention on the footwear, Grooms depicts the author recognizably in uncrowded settings that usually include racially and ethnically diverse company. A final scene of the senator sitting with a group of diverse but not individualized children does skate close to blandness, but overall the art's clean hues and smiling faces create an atmosphere more buoyant than stale for the lightly delivered message. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Good-humored inspiration from heel to toe. (Picture-book autobiography. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.