Cendrillon

San Souci, R. (1998). Cendrillon. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Brief Annotation: A poor washer woman becomes the godmother of Cendrillon, the daughter of a kind woman she works for. When Cendrillon’s mother dies, her father marries a selfish woman who treats his daughter like a servant. When the stepmother and half-sister are invited to a ball, Cendrillon is told that she cannot go. She shares her sadness with her godmother who promises Cendrillon that she will find a way for her to attend the ball. The godmother remembers a wand that her mother gave to her before she died, and decides that she will use its magical powers to help Cendrillon. With a carriage, coach, horses, and a beautiful blue gown, Cendrillon attends the ball where she captures the heart of a handsome, kind man. When the clock strikes twelve, Cendrillon dashes off, leaving behind one pink slipper, and a man who will search the island to find her.

Genre: Folklore

Grade Level: K-3

Readers who will like this: Readers who enjoy Cinderella or other folklore stories, children who enjoy beautifully illustrated stories, children who enjoy or could benefit from a culturally-diverse story.

Response/Rating (1-4): 4. Vibrantly-colored scratch-board art will sweep you away to the Caribbean in this inspiring adaptation of the Cinderella story.

One question you would ask before a read aloud: What would you wish for if you had a magic wand?

Reading Strategies Connection: Venn Diagrams (Tompkins, 2009). In this strategy students use a Venn diagram to compare different topics, exploring similarities and differences either as a class, in groups, or individually. This strategy would work well with this story because it is a different version of Cinderella. Students can use a Venn diagram to compare it to a classic or other version of Cinderella, or individual components or characters of each of the stories.