View source for Don't Chew the Royal Shoe by Kate Leake

{{infobox2
|title=Don't Chew the Royal Shoe
|author=Kate Leake 
|reviewer=Sam Tyler
|genre=For Sharing
|rating=4
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=9781407139357
|pages=32
|publisher=Scholastic Press
|date=January 2015
|aznuk=1407139355
|aznus=1407139355
|cover=1407139355
|website=http://kleake.moonfruit.com/
|video=
|summary=Do you know where your shoes are right now?  You may think that they are all nestled together in the bottom of your wardrobe, but not if the Palace Pooch has anything to say about it.  Join Chips and an alternative Royal Family in this fun filled adventure of shoe eating and burglar catching.
}}
Dogs, love ‘em or loath ‘em, they get underfoot and have a tendency to chew on things that are left around the house.  One set of dogs that you would expect are better trained are the Royal Corgis, they wouldn’t dare chew on a royal shoe.  It turns out that they might not, but that won’t stop Chips, the other royal dog and he likes nothing better than getting his gnashers round a boot or two.

Imagine an alternative British Royal Family, one in which shoe chewing is a regularity.  It is in this world that you will find Kate Leake’s ''Don’t Chew the Royal Shoe''; a light hearted affair about why dogs love to eat people’s shoes.  The antics of Chips become so bad that he manages to eat at least one of every pair of shoes in the house, leaving everyone looking pretty strange in an assortment of footwear that doesn’t match.  It gets so bad that The Queen has to strip Chips of his crown and send him outside.

The premise of ‘Don’t Chew’ is fun as it mixes the stiff upper lip mentality of the British Upper Classes, with the daftness of a shoe loving dog.  There is great fun to be had seeing Chips sneak off with a loafer, only to see the Prince on the next page looking for it.  There is also a gentleness to the story, as it is told from the dog’s point of view.  He purposely only steals one of each type of shoe as he does not want to be greedy.  He enjoys shoes so much as they smell like the people he loves.

Like any good children’s story, this is not just a book about shoe eating, but does have a lesson too.  When a burglar enters the house and all are asleep, who could possibly be the hero?  Although it looks like our hero is to be sent to live out in the garden, he actually saves the day.  This comes as a relief and makes the book feel very light-hearted.

Leake is both the author and illustrator of this book and she does and good job in marrying the images to the text.  The Palace is full of detail and there is fun to be had just deciding which piece of footwear belongs to which character.  You can also play spot the shoe or spot the corgi, as there are usually one or two hidden on the page.  I did feel that the illustrations where a little messy in places, but this is a style choice that is in keeping with the Dahl/Blake craziness of the story.

Mini dog lovers will have a great time helping you to read, ''Don’t Chew the Royal Shoe'', with its anarchic story and fun visuals.  Just make sure you keep it out of reach of your own puppy, they may just give the corner a nibble.

For more from the royal dogs we can recommend [[Winston Windsor and the Diamond Jubilee by Melissa Wareham]].

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