Melanie Parham

Sassy Feet Melanie Parham

Sassy Feet is about a little girl who is born with club feet and has to endure surgeries, casts, and braces with and without bars. Her parents are concerned with helping her with the physical and emotional aspects of this birth defect.

Club feet is the most common birth defect, affecting one out of every one thousand births, and every fifteen minutes, a child is born with some level of club feet. It is a birth defect that, most of the time, can be corrected early in the child's life, but can be socially upsetting as the child sometimes has to wear casts or braces on one or both feet, preventing them from wearing shoes and possibly not participating in certain activities. Children can sometimes be a little cruel or perhaps just curious as to why a child with club feet has to wear corrective casts or braces, therefore bringing unwanted attention or questions.

When the little girl in Sassy Feet starts preschool, her parents don't want her to feel ostracized, so they come up with a plan to paint her casts in such a fun way that instead of unpleasant stares and/or questions, she is considered "cool," and they start calling her Sassy Feet! Giving her that added confidence allows her to get through a potentially rough period of time and removes the stigma that comes with having a birth defect.