The Shoe Bird (original) (raw)

The Shoe Bird is a 1964 children's novel by Southern writer Eudora Welty. The novel tells the story of a parrot in a shoe store, as he talks to other birds about shoes. Welty, who had never written any children's literature before, wrote it to satisfy a contractual obligation with her publisher Harcourt Brace and to pay for a new roof on her house. An orchestral ballet was composed by Lehman Engel and performed by the in 1968. A 2002 choral piece was also commissioned by the Mississippi Boy Choir and composed by composer Samuel Jones.