My son has been through soooo many synthetic leather shoes, I decided I would not buy another shoe until I found a real leather pair for him! These are wonderful...very classy looking, flexible, comfortable and durable. My son is 9 and his school requires a dress up day once a week and these shoes look amazing with his uniform. He says they are very comfortable and that's huge since he's the kind that the 'knobs' in his socks will drive him crazy! He is between a size 3.5 and 4 so we ordered a 4 to give him some room and they fit perfectly with a little room in the toe. I honestly couldn't be happier.