Copper-Toed Boots

<p>Ever since she was a little girl Marguerite de Angeli loved her father's descriptions of the red leather-topped copper-toed boots he prized when he was a young boy in Lapeer Michigan. She also treasured his tales of tradin' at the store and with his schoolmates of a mischievous episode with a calf in the school house belfry of carrying water for the elephants on circus day of picnicking during blackberry time--the quaint happenings of a small American town during the 1870s.</p><p>And finally--almost as though the copper-toed boots had led the way--the story of Shad his friend Ash Tomlinson the little dog Sammy and their good times and mishaps through a Michigan summer just had to be written so that girls and boys of today could share in it with them.</p>