Customer Reviews

Silver Shoes

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished this book and simply loved it! It tells a wonderfully creative and engaging story about the mysterious shoes from the Wizard of Oz. The characters were richly drawn and I couldn't wait to see what would happen next! This is a book that would appeal to younger readers as well as adults. A real page turner - I highly recomend it!

What a fun, thrilling, fascinating book! From the opening chapters where those who have found the Shoes are pursued by threatening, ominous forces, and throughout the adventures of Donald, George and Anirbas, I couldn't put this down. It's an enthralling tale. Mix a child with FBI agents, utopian followers, Flying Monkeys, space portals and with the most powerful magical implement of all time -- the Silver Shoes of Oz -- and you have a gripping story that spins right off the page. Times you think you know what's happened, Schneider surprises you with the unexpected.

The save-the-world mission is more consistent with Middle Earth, Narnia or something Harry Potter might serve up than a traditional Oz book, but devoted fans of the Oz book(s) will be pleased to see how Schneider has written an entirely fresh story that respects the original material. The author clearly knows Oz and Baum far more intimately than most, and he has no intention of meddling with the reality of that sacred fairyland. Plus those familiar with only the classic MGM film can embrace this without hesitation.

Set largely in contemporary America, today's young readers will easily related to Donald and imagine themselves in his place. While the X-files factor is quite the adrenaline rush, it's still a kids' book -- not a Wicked/Was/Barnstormer sort of "Oz" novel written for adults. As an adult, I read it curious about this author's approach to his subject -- how would he explain the mysterious origins, power and post-Dorothy history of he Silver Shoes? It's been done before; would he do it better, or at least well? Yes!

I happily recommend Silver Shoes, and hope Schneider has a sequel or two lurking in him....

I read the book in one afternoon. I am not a fast reader and am usually so busy it takes me weeks to finish a book. I couldn't put it down. It was great. I found myself drawn into the story right away. It kept my interest and the charachters were very real. Being aware of the Wizard Of Oz, I really liked the fact that the whole story could be true, it could be fiction. Who knows? I guess it's up to our own imagination. Paul left it open for possibly more to follow, and yet you don't feel like you were left hanging. I think this will appeal to all ages and both male and female. Buy it, you will enjoy the experience. Tell others so that they can have a chance to enjoy it as well.

A great read! Written in an engaging and fast-reading style, "Silver Shoes" immerses the reader in an exciting story about a family's brief trip through Kansas that in turn leads to a wild adventure. Paul Miles Schneider skillfully weaves the common thread of today's current world with fantasy from the world of Oz to create a novel that you won't be able to put down. Reality and the imagined mix with some unexpected twists and turns and leaves the reader hoping for a sequel! No reader will ever look at L. Frank Baum's work in the same way again. Terrific fun and highly recommended!

Paul Miles Schneider's novel is excellent. He electrifies a story I thought was exhausted by repeated viewings of the Wizard of Oz movie. From the beginning the narrative captures your imagination and leaves you scarcely able to put it away. It is told in such a way that leaves little to question and much to believe and I found myself given over to the tale that lies somewhere between fantasy and history. Characterization is clear and colorful. The cliffhanger of an ending makes this page-turner an excellent gift for anyone who has seen the movie.

This one volume, which moves at a rousing pace full of unexpected twists and turns, literally caps off the series as written by Baum and opens a new gateway into bringing Oz into the twenty-first century. It's an intense story, even in its quieter moments, and one has the sense of seeing it as the fine tip of a much larger, more ominous, and thrilling iceberg. A true sleeping giant has awoken!

What ever happened to "The Silver Shoes"?

I had wondered about that my entire life after reading "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L.Frank Baum.
Mr Schneider has not only answered that question for all of us fans, but he has created a conspiracy around "what if Oz was real?. . .and our government knew about windows in time and space that could be entry ways to get there?
"Silver Shoes" will take you away, keep you suspended, make you cheer, and keep you wanting more!
If you have ever felt a connection to this story like I have, You must read this book.
Paul Miles Schneider will not let you down !

When I was in grade school in the early 1970's, there was one author who utterly captivated me by her gift for telling her tales from the perspective of the children who served as her protagonists. This author was Wilson Gage (Mary Q. Steele). Gage knew just how much to tell without giving away the plot's great secret, yet made the immediate narrative too fascinating to skip to get to the end. She knew how adults and children interact--that the latter live in an entirely different plane of reality, one they unfortunately forget how to access with the onslaught of puberty and pop culture. Above all, she knew the complex emotional crazy quilt of childhood feelings, hopes, dreams, fears--how children assign power to objects which to the adults in their lives are inanimate and lifeless. If those adults only knew. Well, move over Wilson Gage. Paul Miles Schneider, in his first novel, has written a book about a boy's adventure which works not just for children but for adults, because it shows how often adults don't check in to a child's reality, his inner world that he is trained to keep out of sight, and it shows how much of that world still lives in even the most jaded grown up. In "Silver Shoes", Schneider takes the silver slippers of L. Frank Baum's Dorothy in his 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and frames them as talismans not of fiction but reality, lifting them off the page into every day American life, with all the ramifications - magical and otherwise - that that transfer entails. Schneider's masterful technique lends a tautness and mystery that will keep the book in your hands from first page to last. To reveal anything more about the plot would be to rob the reader of experiencing what to me was one of the most pleasurable reading experiences I've had in years--since reading the masterworks of Wilson Gage, to be precise. The book begs to be made into a film, but don't wait for Hollywood. "Silver Shoes" is a fantastic journey that has to be read to be believed.

Take a day off from work, take the phones off the hook, get yourself a cup of coffee (and put the pot close by), find a comfortable corner and start reading "Silver Shoes". You won't want to get up until you've finished! And if that isn't enough, Paul Miles Schneider's references to the original story of Oz and L. Frank Baum will have you digging out the old Oz books again (or for some, the first time) so you can accompany Dorothy on her trip to Oz. It's a fabulous, exciting book and highly recommended for young readers.

Fabulous book! The characters come to life with Paul's words. I can not wait for the next book in the series!