Daisy Toes

Daisy Toes  (2000) Post 303

Daisy Toes is one of my reading scheme titles under the name of Joseph Corella. I can't find my copy, and neither can I find an image on the internet, but if I locate the book I'll put the cover up

retrospectively. (And here it is!) It is, as I recall, pale green with white and yellow, and shows a child with an upraised bare foot. Here's the blurb:
 Mimi has been stung on the foot by a bee. It hurts. even worse, Gran has told  her to go to school with an onion in her sock. The onion takes away the  sting, but soon everyone wants to know why the classroom smells of onions.  What is Mimi going to do? She can't tell them she was stung by a bee while  picking daisies with the toes. No one picks daisies with their toes, or do  they? by Joseph Corella ; illustrated by Anna Walker.

Anna Walker's website is at https://www.annawalker.com.au/ so you can see the style she illustrates in. As with so many of my books, this one was written from a combination of stuff I've picked up over years of reading and discovering, and personal experience. I used to run about barefoot a lot as a child, because I had so much trouble finding comfortable shoes. I have a long foot with a narrow heel and broad front and long toes, and I find many shoes rub up blisters. I used to be able to pick up pencils etc with my toes, so I was interested to read a folk tale (Welsh, maybe?) about a man who wanted to marry the lake king's daughter, and was faced with hundreds of identical girls. His girl pushed her foot out from under her gown to show she was holding daisies between her toes as a broad hint. Add to this my allergy to bee stings (every time I get stung the swelling is worse) and the folk-treatment of onion to soothe the sting... and you can see how Daisy Toes came about. 
Daisy Toes has links with Wolfmaster (Post 235)... in that Mimi's class is listening to Wolfmaster being read as a class serial... and the children have a few comments on it.

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Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service.