Why I’m writing about a left shoe…
For the past six years, there’s been a single purple-and-blue left shoe stomping around the depths of my right brain. It has caused a headache on occasion; real pain that can come from stifled self-expression, like that of a mother whose baby kicks and kicks but can’t break free from the womb. But mostly, this purple-and-blue left shoe has simply been floating along undisturbed, outside of my day-to-day consciousness.
I don’t have kids. I’ve never worked in education. And here I am, about to go all in on a book series for six-year-olds. Why?
The real truth is that, on the surface level, the left shoe simply showed up one day. I remember sitting in my Dubai apartment one afternoon in late 2016, staring off into a flat, sandy eternity from my 48th-floor window. I had recently left my job and was languishing, unsure of what to make of where I had been and even less sure of where I was going. For the first time in more than a decade, I started writing a poem:
There once was a shoe, he was purple and blue
And would travel the world around…
I kept going. Rhymes flowed onto my notepad. The words were light and airy, but the ideas they conveyed were heavy and hairy. It was a whimsical poem aimed for kids, but was able to capture more ‘grown up’ concepts typically dismissed as too complicated or controversial for such an audience: anti-racism, religious tolerance, mea culpa and misinformation, to name a few.
Then suddenly, it didn’t flow anymore. I’m not a poet. I can’t write a book. I can’t draw. Publishing seems complicated.
The left shoe didn’t die, but went into a catatonic state, waking up for a brief kick every now and then over the next few years. And then, just a few months ago, I started thinking about how much sense it all made.
I’m a big believer in human-centered design, a methodology that factors in psychological and behavioral factors in building solutions. With that being a lens through which I assess problems of all kinds, I finally understand why The Left Shoe showed up on that late afternoon six years ago.
For years, I’ve been concerned about how ideas spread. I’ve drifted off to sleep many a night pondering how might we slow down our cultural trend towards ideology-driven polarization. And a few months ago, a light went on in my head to reveal the connected dots: The Left Shoe was the biggest swing I found that I could take, within my range of capability and influence, to solve this polarization problem. Thinking in terms of human-centered design, here’s why:
1. The format can suspend rejection of the ideas
The most thoughtful attempts to build understanding across ideology lines are essentially preaching to the choir. They may be empathetic, deeply researched and analytical, but overlook the human factor of how the masses currently consume information, via distribution channels that are one-sided in nature. If you consider yourself conservative, you reject anything coming from CNN or the Washington Post. If you consider yourself liberal, you reject anything coming from Fox, regardless of what it might be saying.
But a whimsical story about a shoe? We all wear shoes, and a coming-of-age story in a way represents all of us. I hope that by focusing on the story and minimizing signals that would give someone reason to reject ideas immediately based on a perception that they are coming from an “other” group, I’ll create more surface area on which ideas can connect.
2. Kids are the most impressionable
This goes without much explanation, but our first 10 years deeply impact who we become–and the world views we form–as adults. I believe that building a bridge to young readers may provide a much greater return on effort than the most well-thought-out attempts to reach “other” group adults with closed minds.
3. The best children’s books are timeless
This goes without much explanation, but our first 10 years deeply impact who we become–and the world views we form–as adults. I believe that building a bridge to young readers may provide a much greater return on effort than the most well-thought-out attempts to reach “other” group adults with closed minds.
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When it comes to shelf life, it’s really hard for non-fiction or editorial opinion to compete with fiction. Dr. Seuss, who died more than 30 years ago, occupied 6 of the top 10 spots on USA Today’s bestseller list in 2021. There’s not a strong parallel between The Left Shoe and Horton Hears a Who!, but it serves to show that, with a bit of good fortune, the medium can be timeless and impactful for generations.
I’m ultimately looking at The Left Shoe as an experiment to try to cut through ideology circles and across echo chambers. It is a series with a visual style (soft, warm and cute) and literary style (rhythmic poetry) that can appeal to the lower elementary ages, but with some complex subject matter that may be better suited to those a couple of years older. My hope is that by reaching kids when they are most impressionable, removing any idea of a “shelf life” and choosing a deeply whimsical story that can essentially serve as a trojan horse, I can sneak ideas of inclusiveness into minds that might otherwise be influenced by polarization. If it works, this little left shoe can leave a big footprint along our path forward as a diverse, connected society.
Thanks to Camilo Moreno-Salamanca for editing this essay.