4/22/2013

Happy Earth Day, Walk Barefoot.

Happy Earth Day, Walk Barefoot. | Kristen Caven | Blog Post | Red Room

I'll be blogging all week with book giveaways on Redroom. Here's the first one... anyone remember clodhoppers?

I remember reading this wonderful Sci Fi series when I was high school about Thomas (Somebody) and The Land. He walked barefoot on the mountain trails, and could feel what was happening with The Land, which was being killed by boot-wearing armies with plots of their own.  As someone who had consciously worked, as a child, to build up callouses on tender spring feet so I could go barefoot all summer, I GOT it. I read this book at the time people were wearing  “clodhoppers”  with flannel shirts… and when I laced mine up, I could feel the senses of my soles becoming benumbed by rubber.
And there was something about Cinderella’s feet that intrigued me so much I had to write this story. Here she is, a scullery maid who, like the poor, like the indigenous, is earthbound. You really don’t need shoes to feed chickens, to clean floors. There is something good for your soul to have your soles touching the earth. And there is something about shoes that can separate you from your essence.
When you read my book, you will think about shoes in a way you haven’t before. Harry has quite the philosophy about shoes that he spouts in the song he sings to Ashley. But I just thought of something new about Cinderella’s shoe that I wish I’d put in the book. Maybe it will have to go into the musical: A glass slipper is like a window on the sole.
I’m doing book giveaways all week to celebrate the book launch of The Souls of Her Feet. Today I will give a book away to anyone who can tell me the name of that story about Thomas Something and The Land.  OR anyone who can provide a link to the Clodhoppers I'm talking about - they just don't come up in Google Search!!