Petrone Print

The first draft of this book was delivered to the author’s daughter Marta as a gift for her third birthday. Three years later, this 90-page collection of short stories about an imaginative little girl was published.

With colorful and moving illustrations by artist Piia Maiste, Marta’s Toes is both deeply personal and universal. In it, the author tells quick tales of her daughter’s encounters with an outside world where the unnoticed details of daily life can take on extraordinary meaning.

Marta lives in a world where the bubbles in her bathtub whisper to her, where planes wave at her from the sky, where she is befriended by ladybugs, and where she greets her toes in the morning and they talk back to her. Seen through a child’s eyes, Marta’s Toes also is an account of a young girl developing relationships with her mother and father and grandparents, adapting to life in a new home, and trying to understand what it means when someone dies. Altogether, Marta’s Toes provides a fresh perspective on the joy and warmth of everyday family life.