Description Best Children's Book of 2006! - Bank Street College 2006 Book of the Year Nominee - Foreword Magazine "Take heart! Be brave, and follow in the footsteps I have left behind!" This is a book about leadership. Good King Wenceslas (907-929), who still lives on in the hearts of the Czech people today, was a real king who ruled in the 10th century. During his brief reign of just over nine years, his wise and virtuous rule and his leadership rooted in a good and gentle character left a lasting impression on the Czech nation. Every winter, in Wenceslas Square in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, songs honoring Good King Wenceslas can still be heard. The image of the king carrying food and firewood on his own back to help a poor farmer, pressing forward through a fierce snowstorm on a bitterly cold winter day, is deeply moving. Even more touching is the miraculous tale of how warm steam rose from the footprints the king left in the snow — so much so that when his page followed in those very footprints, his frozen feet were warmed enough to thaw. The good character and leadership he showed in caring for the small and the humble, the unyielding leadership he displayed in pressing forward through the snowstorm, and the devoted leadership he embodied by carrying the firewood himself — these are the very qualities of leadership we still dream of today, even centuries later.