The Repair of Uncle Toe

by Kay Chorao

The heart of Uncle Toe, who runs a shoe repair shop, has always been ""leathery at the edges,"" but when Sam goes to live with him it grows ""as hard as an old boot."" ""And as Uncle Toe stomped and jigged and roared and yelled"" at Sam, ""the leather grew and grew and grew until Uncle Toe was one enormous shoe!"" Released by his uncle's immobility, Sam indulges in an orgy of naughtiness -- jumping on the bed, playing with water, crawling out on the boot sign -- but when night comes he is so frightened and lonely that he obeys his uncle's previously unthinkable request -- throwing Brute, his toy animal and only consolation, out the window. This so touches Uncle Toe that his heart is warmed and his body returns to normal. Happy and humanized, Toe retrieves Brute and is kind to Sam ""forever after."" The fantastic image of the man turned shoe gives the story its distinction; the fact that it works is largely due to the expressive black and white pictures that create an ingeniously dreamlike atmosphere with literal precision.

45 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 1972

About the author

Kay Chorao is a children's writer and illustrator.

She was born Ann McKay Sproat in Elkhart, Indiana, United States, into a middle-class, suburban family. She loved and was encouraged to draw at a young age. She attended Laurel School in Shaker Heights, OH. Chorao went to Wheaton College, where in 1958 she earned a Bachelor of Arts in art history. After that, Chorao pursued her graduate study at Chelsea School of Art from 1958 to 1959.

Chorao got married and had three sons before moving to New York with her family. From 1966 to 1968, she studied book illustration at School of Visual Arts in New York.

Besides writing self-illustrated children's books, Chorao has been the illustrator for many books by Jane Yolen, Judith Viorst, Jan Wahl, and Marjorie Sharmat.