The people of a Moroccan village offer a new pair of shoes to a local merchant, Kassim, in exchange for his old tattered one; mishaps ensue every time he tries to give it away.

[1][3][4] Harold Berson's work is a retelling of "Abu Kassim's Shoes",[5] a folktale from Morocco[3] which has circulated across the Middle East since the 14th–15th centuries, and may have entered Europe by way of Spain.

[1][3][4] The School Library Journal called it "an attractive picture-story",[1] while the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books found it "nicely retold".

[3] The Christian Science Monitor's Gene Langley predicted that "children will have more fun [than their parents] following the story to its right and proper ending.

"[9] As Barbara Pierce of the Poughkeepsie Journal said, "Here's proof that a simple, everyday thing can be the basis for a good story, if imaginatively handled.