The Blue Shoe by Roderick Townley

As you can see by my not posting anything, this book took me longer than usual.  I'm glad it's over with.  You know me in that a book is a book.  I rarely say that a book is horrible.  This book wasn't the best or even high on my good list, but it wasn't horrible.  It was really bizzarre to tell you the truth.  The first 80% of the book was super slow and I was waiting for something exciting to happen.  I guess I should at least tell you why it was so slow....and not horrible but not good.  The story takes place in the village of Aplanap, weird I know.  But there's an evil mayor who's wife, Ludmilla, gets whatever she wants from the little shops without having to pay a cent.  Eventually the townspeople have to start begging and that will not be tolerated by the mayor and his rather large wife.  So beggars are sent to the mountain of xexnax and never heard of again, so no one really knows what happens on that mountain.  Hap and his father Silas were forced to steal and beg in order to survive.  Silas gets caught and sent to Xexnax.  Hap is saved by Grel, the town cobbler, who promises to raise Hap the right way and to have him work off his debt in his store.  Hap grows up to love Grel and respect him, all the while trying to think of a way to get his father off the mountain.  One day a stranger shows up with a pocketfull of jewels and gems and wants one single shoe made.  Grel thinks this is out of the ordinary, but was paid in advance and did his best.  His best turned out to be a masterpiece.  The traveler had said he would return for the shoe, but years go by and the shoe was never retrieved.  Hap ends up trying to save a beggar on the street one day.  The beggar ends up getting caught and the only way Hap can think to save her is to use a gem off of the "blue shoe".  He gets caught for stealing and gets sent to the mountain.  Once he gets on the mountain thats when things start to pick up.  Hap ends up meeting a lot of new friends and the story takes a weird turn.  It took me a while to read which is saying a lot.
  This book would be good for strictly younger kids.  Maybe fourth or fifth grade.  I felt like there could have been more to the story because the story plot itself could have been told more quickly than it was.  I felt like it just dragged on and on and on so that I was waiting for something to happen.  For most of the book I was just wanting to get it over with so I could move on to a better book!  As usual, any questions just let me know.