My 8 year old daughter wears through shoes quickly so I'm hesitant to spend a lot on them, but I also don't want her to have foot problems sometime down the road because Mama pinched buying cheap shoes.  I always buy her shoes on amazon.com for the price factor, but buying without trying on has proven difficult at times.  Her feet are hard to fit, most shoes she says feel tight across the tops and on the sides.  I took a gamble and ordered these in the regular and not wide (pinching again, wide was $20 more!) and planned on buying the wides if these didn't fit.  They fit like a glove and she LOVES the laces.  She was constantly tying the laces on her old shoes and it drove her crazy.  I wanted all of her previous shoes to be tie laces to make sure she had that skill cemented, I think we're good on that now.  The laces are stretchy (bungee) so they're comfortable.  Her favorite color is aqua so she was excited that they're both cute and feel good on her feet.