Seamus’s Short Story

Heather Hartt-Sussman • Milan Pavlovic

4-8 years

Seamus would give anything to be taller! One day, while playing dress-up in his mother’s closet, he finds a way to reach new heights.

With his mother’s high-heeled shoes on, Seamus can suddenly reach everything that was once too high: the top-floor elevator button, the chocolate milk in the fridge, the TV remote and that horrid picture of him as a baby. But when Seamus encounters problems that can’t be solved from a great height, he has to admit that sometimes being small just isn’t so bad.

Acclaimed picture book author Heather Hartt-Sussman brings a light touch to this nuanced story about acceptance, resourcefulness and love, complemented by the humor and beauty in Milan Pavlovic’s colorful paintings of Seamus’s world — where there are times to be tall and times to be small.

What People Are Saying:

Included in The Globe 100 (Toronto Globe and Mail editors and reviewers offer up their favourite books of 2017) 

“Hartt-Sussman takes an imaginative and lighthearted approach to this story about self-expression and gender identity, in which frustrated Seamus starts dressing up in his mother's high heels in order to experience life as a taller person.”

— The Globe and Mail

“VERDICT: A clever and very funny picture book about living life on one’s own terms.”

- School Library Journal

“This familiar-seeming tale about being small in a world built for the tall takes an unexpected and rewarding turn…. Gender norms don’t come up, there isn’t a whiff of objection to his decision, and Seamus radiates confidence as he strides through life: “He feels free. It is wonderful being tall (except that sometimes his feet hurt).”…. For Seamus, heels are about utility, not fashion or identity—one gets the sense he’s breaking “rules” he doesn’t know about in the first place. Ages 4–7."

– Publishers Weekly

“A diminutive boy finds a gender-bending solution to reach greater heights.”

- Kirkus